  OTHER PAGES: Welcome About the Centre Research Projects French Emblems at Glasgow Glasgow Emblem Group Glasgow Emblem Studies Stirling Maxwell Fellowship Links |
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Centre for Emblem StudiesEmblem studies are a special strength within the University of Glasgow. Members of the Centre are drawn from acroos a braod spectrum of Departments, Schools and othe CEntres in the Faculty of Arts. Colleagues from further afield are frequent visitors to Glasgow and participate in a number of the Centre’s activities. This broad base reflects the interdisciplinary nature of this text/image based genre which developed in all European countries and languages during the Renaissance, and continued to flourish in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the influence of emblems extends to literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some individual emblem books can be said to represent the peak of book production of their periods. The symbolical means of expression characteristic of the genre invites a multiplicity of approaches, from the traditional literary or art-historical, to the semiotic; moreover its didactic intention involves the consideration of varied historical and philosophical contexts, ranging from contemporary political events through the complex religious conflicts of the period to the hermetic and the alchemical.
Resources and Research EnvironmentThe Stirling
Maxwell Collection of Emblem Books and related Literature, the largest
discrete collection in the world, was amassed by the renowned collector
Sir William Stirling Maxwell during the nineteenth century, and bequeathed
to the University in 1958 by his son. It is housed in the Special Collections
Department of Glasgow University Library and is actively developed,
both by the acquisition of emblem books proper, and by the purchase
of appropriate modern secondary works. The Stirling Maxwell books form
but one of many important collections of older material in the University
Library (founded 1475), including, importantly in this field, the highly
significant Ferguson
Collection of alchemical works. Adjacent to the Library the Hunterian
Art Gallery houses an important print collection of direct relevance
to emblem research. These resources provide a fertile environment for
research into emblem books from all parts of Europe, as well as in related
areas of book history, literary history, art history, and alchemy. They
have thus engaged the interest of colleagues from a wide range of departments
and from a variety of research backgrounds. Glasgow is indeed the focus
for scholarly work on emblems in the United Kingdom and beyond.
Glasgow Emblem Digitisation ProjectIn May 2004 Glasgow Centre for Emblem Studies was awarded a grant of £163,385 by the Arts and Humanities Research Board (now the Arts and Humanities Research Council) under the Resource Enhancement Scheme, for the digitisation of the corpus of French Sixteenth Century Emblem Books. Full details are given on the Glasgow Emblem Digitisation Project page. Click here for the resulting French Emblems at Glasgow website.
Italian Emblem Digitisation ProjectDonato Mansueto received funding for Spetember 2005 to August 2006 from the European Union to take up a Marie Curie Fellowship, to investigate the methodologies and practicalities of setting up a Website of Italian Emblem Books, and related material. Click here for The Study & Digitisation of Italian Emblems website.
Alciato Digitisation ProjectThis Project, funded partly by the British Academy, presents 22 editions of the Emblems of Andrea Alciato, from between 1531 and 1621. Featuring on this site is a searchable version of the index to the 1621 Tozzi edition printed in Padua.. Click here for the Alciato at Glasgow website.
Research ProjectsColleagues within the Centre pursue a wide variety of individual research projects, ranging from basic bibliographical work to literary and art-historical study. Currently, attention focuses on areas as disparate as Protestant emblem books and the link between emblems and bande dessinée. The Research Projects page contains information
on some current concerns of the Centre. Standards for Digitisation: Information on meetings held at Glasgow University on 21st and 22nd June, 2001, in Palma, Mallorca on 6th October 2001, and in Wolfenbüttel in September 2003 is posted here, along with a prototype template for the description of individual emblems.
Glasgow University Emblem WebsiteThe Glasgow University Emblem Website houses three major web resources: the AHRC funded French Emblems at Glasgow, EU Marie Curie Actions funded Study & Digitisation of Italian Emblems , and the British Academy funded Alciato at Glasgow websites. Alongside these resources, the Glasgow Emblems Website houses other Research Aids, and an edition of Mignault's Theoretical Work on the Emblem. The Glasgow Emblem Website is at: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/. Further links to other emblems research websites are listed on the links page of this site.
Glasgow Emblem GroupThis multidisciplinary Research Seminar which is associated with the
Centre was founded in 1986 and has active members drawn not only from
the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde but also from Edinburgh,
St Andrews and Aberdeen. The Group meets four or five times a year,
and presents both the opportunity to hear papers from visiting specialists,
and to discuss on-going research projects. Informally the Group serves
as an invaluable contact point for the exchange of ideas in what is
of its nature an interdisciplinary field of study.
Glasgow Emblem Studies
The Sir William Stirling Maxwell FellowshipThis fellowship was founded in 1987, with the knowledge and consent of Sir William’s heirs, to promote research using the Stirling Maxwell Collection. Scholars from the University of Minnesota, University of Utrecht, University New South Wales, University of Arkansas, Waikato University, Memphis State University, University of Tartu/University of Göttingen, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Saitama University, the University of Denver, the State University of Washington (Pullman), the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Kiel and the University of Northern Bristish Columbia have so far been appointed. For more information see the Sir William Stirling Maxwell Fellowship page on this site.
Society for Emblem StudiesThis is the learned society which promotes and encourages the study of emblematics in all its manifestations, and the Centre for Emblem Studies is associated to it. Two international conferences, with which the Society has been associated, have been held in Glasgow in 1987 and 1990. The Society’s Newsletter is edited by Professor Alison Adams, Centre for Emblem Studies, University of Glasgow. The Chairman of the Society is Professor Mara Wade of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. The website for the Society is at: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/SES/
Postgraduate ResearchStrong research interests in the Faculty include Alciato; early French
emblem books; translation; English Renaissance poetry; Italian Renaissance
literature; the relationship between literature and painting (seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries); the bibliography of emblem books; and alchemy.
Support for research topics in related areas is found within the Departments
of English Literature, French, German, Hispanic Studies, Italian, Slavonic
Languages and Literatures, and History of Art, and the Wellcome Unit
for the History of Medicine.
Expert colleagues from Glasgow University Library and from the Hunterian Art Gallery offer help and advice with the technicalities of printing, engraving and the discipline of descriptive bibliography. A one year M.Litt. (by research) could suitably be used as a methodological springboard to further research work in other areas of Renaissance and/or Baroque Studies. A module on emblems is offered within the M.Litt for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Contact: Dr Laurence Grove, |
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