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Fragmenta Manuscripta

Curated by Brittany Rancour and Nicole Songstad, 2018-2021.

Fragmenta Manuscripta is a collection of manuscript fragments that date from the eighth through the seventeenth centuries.

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Incunables in Special Collections

Curated by John Henry Adams, 2020.

Printing with moveable type began in Europe in the 1450s in the German city of Mainz with the Gutenberg Bible in 1455. The technology spread swiftly across the continent: in ten years, there were printing presses in operation in Italy. By 1475, printing had spread to France, Switzerland, Holland, Hungary, Belgium, Poland, and Spain, and by 1485, England, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden were also printing. Other regions would follow suit until by 1500, there was...

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Masks, Hells, and Books: The Nuremberg Schembartlauf (1449-1539)

Curated by John Henry Adams, 2022.

The Schembartlauf (“the running of the masked men”) was a traditional element of Carnival in Nuremberg in Franconia. Celebrated on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, it consisted of a parade of men in masks and ornate costumes who came down from the castle into the city, culminating in a dramatic destruction of their parade float in the town square.