Malcolm Walsby
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lankian.bsky.social
Malcolm Walsby
@lankian.bsky.social
1.5K followers 450 following 99 posts
Professor of book history, director of the Gabriel Naude research centre, director of research at Enssib (University of Lyon)
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lankian.bsky.social
To end the week, a few lines of an unknown 16th-century song jotted down on the cover of a notarial register in Le Puy en Velay:

'Et pourquoy se dormoit elle / La petite Jannetton / Et pourquoy se dormoit elle / Sur le chemin de Lyon'
Verse written on the cover of a register
November 14, 2025 at 3:12 PM
lankian.bsky.social
Here is an English synopsis of the book:
Full text: The printing and reading of Renaissance books have been extensively studied. But what happened between the printing of the pages in the workshop and the moment a reader picked up a volume has not attracted much attention. Yet this movement from the workshop to the reader was a crucial stage in the life of any publication. The analysis of this stage allows us to understand the true impact of printing. Local, national and international distribution, as well as the methods of selling printed matter, are fundamental to explaining how people gained access to books in Renaissance France. Drawing on previously unknown archival sources scattered throughout France and beyond, as well as the examination of tens of thousands of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century books preserved in numerous European libraries, this study offers a radically new approach to the first century and a half of the circulation and sale of printed books in France. It is the result of more than twenty years of research in the field.
September 11, 2025 at 8:43 AM
lankian.bsky.social
Delighted to announce the publication of my latest book on the distribution and sale of printed books in Renaissance France...

(cheap at just € 25 😉)
pur-editions.fr/product/1027...

#bookhistory #history #renaissance
September 11, 2025 at 7:59 AM
lankian.bsky.social
Très heureux d'annoncer la parution aujourd'hui aux @editionspur.bsky.social de ma dernière monographie: 'Entre l'atelier et le lecteur. Le commerce du livre imprimé dans la France de la Renaissance'

Vous pouvez vous procurer un exemplaire ici:

pur-editions.fr/product/1027...
September 11, 2025 at 7:41 AM
lankian.bsky.social
A chaque année son livret...

Le Master d'histoire 'Cultures de l'écrit et de l'image' @enssib.bsky.social reprend la semaine prochaine.

Bonne rentrée à toutes et à tous!
Les livrets des quatre dernières années du Master CEI
September 11, 2025 at 6:20 AM
lankian.bsky.social
A story of Insults and reconciliation in 16th-century Auvergne in my latest blog post (it had been a while...) from the archives of the Puy-de-Dôme in Clermont-Ferrand:

renarchives.hypotheses.org/4179
An engraving of a man and a woman involved in a brawl
August 25, 2025 at 9:49 AM
lankian.bsky.social
The 7th issue of the Sammelband flyleaf is out... with the latest information on the Sammelband 15-16 project

You can read it online @archive.org : archive.org/details/samm...

Or download it via the Sammelband 15-16 website: sammelband.hypotheses.org/2762

#bookhistory
Front page of the Sammelband Flyleaf n°7
July 10, 2025 at 12:18 PM
lankian.bsky.social
And, to end the first day, @ninalamal.bsky.social starts with an 'i spy' game to talk about privileges through retrospective bibliographies.
Nina Lamal starting her paper
June 26, 2025 at 3:44 PM
lankian.bsky.social
I will be speaking this afternoon at the CERL conference in Brussels about 'Re-using Retrospective Bibliographies and the Sammelband 15-16 research project: opportunities and limitations' - looking forward to seeing some of you there!

www.cerl.org/services/sem...
Conference poster on 'Mapping knowledge'
June 26, 2025 at 5:57 AM
lankian.bsky.social
For those who have not seen it, researchers at the University of St Andrews are testing a device that can identify through light the presence of arsenic in old books:

news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/new-...

The research poster is a great recap:
@uniofstandrews.bsky.social @universalstc.bsky.social
Poster on arsenic and light
June 7, 2025 at 8:51 AM
lankian.bsky.social
Interested in the latest research on Renaissance Lyon book history?

The annual one-day Biblyon conference will take place on 4 July with the following line-up:

(and you can follow it online on the @enssib.bsky.social youtube channel!)
Poster for Biblyon 2025 Biblyon 2025 programme
June 4, 2025 at 10:50 AM
lankian.bsky.social
Le dernier numéro de _Balisages_ sur le livre et l'événement, du manuscrit au numérique, est désormais en ligne.

Sous la direction de @nicolasbeaupre.bsky.social et de Susan Kovacs, il est en libre accès, bien sûr, sur @openedition.bsky.social !

journals.openedition.org/balisages/
Page de titre du numéro 9 de Balisages
June 4, 2025 at 6:59 AM
lankian.bsky.social
A couple of photos of the exhibition 'Livres et chercheurs en réseaux' on networks in the Renaissance printing world at the Diderot library of ENS Lyon...
Photo of part of the exhibition Close up of two greek books
May 14, 2025 at 7:53 AM
lankian.bsky.social
Here's a good starting point:

www.e-rara.ch/zuz/content/...
Biblia sacra title page
April 23, 2025 at 2:59 PM
lankian.bsky.social
Interested in learning more about rare books?

I offer two summer school courses @allardpierson.bsky.social in Amsterdam in the first week of September:

1. Expert approaches to Book Archaeology

2. Identifying and understanding different types of bindings

#Bookhistory #bindings #books
⬇️
Close up of G3r of a book printed on vellum
April 17, 2025 at 1:27 PM
lankian.bsky.social
A 16th-century German binding in the collections of the University of Cyprus in Nicosia @ucy1.bsky.social decorated with the medallions of great reformers and pre-reformers, notably Erasmus, Luther and Melanchthon:

#bookhistory #bindings #reformation
Medallions of Erasmus, Luther and Melanchthon
March 27, 2025 at 4:30 PM
lankian.bsky.social
On Monday at 6:30 pm CET (7:30 local), I will be setting out a new comprehensive approach to the way we think about heritage books to the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus:

"The Archaeology of the Book: rethinking how we analyse books"

1/2
March 20, 2025 at 6:59 AM
lankian.bsky.social
Pour ceux qui sont à Paris et qui s'intéressent à l'histoire du livre:

Je vais parler ce vendredi (13h30-15h30) d'un exemplaire de l'édition parisienne de 1617 du _Persiles_ de Cervantes conservé @enssib.bsky.social.

Pour plus d'infos, voir l'affiche⬇️

Vous êtes toutes et tous les bienvenus!
Affiche de l'intervention du 21 mars 2025 sur le Persiles de Cervantes
March 17, 2025 at 9:13 AM
lankian.bsky.social
PO = POT

Watermark used in Rouen in 1555.

From a manuscript volume of documents @archives76.bsky.social
Watermark of a pot with the letters POT
March 11, 2025 at 4:20 PM
lankian.bsky.social
Talking in Lyon this morning about the first edition of Jean de La Bruyère's 'Caracteres' as part of a one day event on preparing a digital edition of the text:

www.mshb.fr/event/journe...

Do come and exchange with us!
Title page of the first edition of La Bruyère's 'Caracteres'
February 14, 2025 at 6:46 AM
lankian.bsky.social
The archaeology of a printed edition and its copies...

Presenting my findings on 'Les faitz de Jésus Christ et du Pape' to the SETAF project of the Université de Genève and the Institut d'histoire de la Réformation this morning :

www.unige.ch/ihr/fr/journ...
Inner margin of the third edition
February 7, 2025 at 6:44 AM
lankian.bsky.social
I am delighted to present the cover of my forthcoming monograph on the French Renaissance book trade ⬇️

It concentrates on what happens after the sheets are printed, but before the books are read.

It is with the publisher, the Presses universitaires de Rennes, and will be out in September 2025.
Title page of the forthcoming book 'Entre l'atelier et le lecteur. Le commerce du livre imprimé dans la France de la Renaissance'
January 28, 2025 at 1:35 PM
lankian.bsky.social
Dans le cadre des Nuits de la lecture, je vais parler ce soir de l'histoire du livre à l'Université de Rouen en compagnie de Philippe Brunet, Yvan Leclerc et Christelle Quillet.

Entrée libre et gratuite

Merci à Alice Bryk et Julien Beal pour leur invitation !
Flyer pour les nuits de la lecture à Rouen
January 23, 2025 at 11:00 AM
lankian.bsky.social
I will be speaking in Lyon about the archaeology of the Renaissance book on Monday 13 January at 6pm

for more information, see
www.imprimerie.lyon.fr/fr/actualite... (all welcome)

- Lecture organised by the Friends of the 'Musée de l'imprimerie et de la communication graphique' -
Photo of 16th century binding waste
January 7, 2025 at 2:24 PM
lankian.bsky.social
An isolated woman, an unexpected illness and even the death of an ox...

An accusation of witchcraft in late sixteenth-century France on my blog 'Renaissances: archives and discoveries':
renarchives.hypotheses.org/3796
Detail of an engraving by Hans Baldung Grien
December 26, 2024 at 10:08 AM