From October 15, 2021–January 23, 2022, the Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum in New York hosts an exhibition ten years in the making: Imperial Splendor: The Art of the Book in the Holy Roman Empire, 800–1500. The exhibition presents material that has never before been gathered together, treating topics including visual rhetorics of power in book media, the production and patronage of manuscripts, the relationship between vernacular and Classical languages, and the position of imperial cities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The Princeton conference, Power, Patronage, and Production: Book Arts from Central Europe (ca. 800–1500) in American Collections expands the purview of the exhibition. The papers encompass material written in Czech, German, Hebrew, and Latin, made for both religious and non-religious contexts in the ninth, twelfth, and fifteenth centuries. Most of the focal material is very little published; some papers present new looks at superstar examples based on cutting-edge findings. Themes include the networked relationships among centers of production, the representation of male and female patrons, early print culture, and the role of books in key developments for liturgy, private devotion, chronicle writing, and the law.

The conference will run in hybrid form. We cordially invite attendance on Zoom by all interested in the conference proceedings. To register for the Zoom, please click here.

In-person attendance is contingent on space; due to current campus public health policy, registration will be limited to Princeton University ID holders and visitors sponsored by the Department of Art & Archaeology. Please register your interest if you wish to attend in person; priority will be given to students.

For conference program questions: Beatrice Kitzinger [email protected]. For Zoom or any registration questions: Mo Chen [email protected].

The full schedule can be viewed here: https://bookarts.princeton.edu/schedule/