Friday 20 July 2007

Professor Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute)
Medieval Scientific Manuscripts
Half day - from 10.00am
Venue: Seng Tee Lee Centre , Senate House Library, 4th Floor, Senate House South Block

This seminar will examine manuscripts of texts on arithmetic, geometry, astrology, astronomy, divination and medicine (using facsimiles), showing how scribes dealt with the representation of numbers and the setting out of tables and diagrams. Also to be explored is the didactic use of illustrations (e.g. in surgery), and the adaptation of the manuscript book, parchment and paper to practical exigencies (e.g. the use of paper dials, medical and astrological vade mecums, and scraps of writing paper for sketching horoscopes). More generally, the role of the book in medieval science will be discussed.

Essential Bibliography:
J. E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages , New York , 1984.
P. M. Jones, Medieval Medicine in Illuminated Manuscripts , London , 1998.

Please bring a pencil: pens are not allowed when valuable manuscript facsimiles are in use