Medieval Studies  Tags: sacred_leaves graduate_symposium medieval_manuscripts  

 eginning in 2003 the Tampa Library worked closely with the Department of Art and Art History at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, at the University of South Florida, to organize courses on exhibition research. The first two exhibitions, Bibles in the Age of Gothic Cathedrals and Books of Hours: Illuminated Devotion, were organized by Art History Professor Helena Szepe. Professor Szepe structured her undergraduate and graduate seminars to research the items on display. The students primary and secondary research produced the textual content for the accompanying exhibition catalogues. The Library's third Sacred Leaves exhibit, Liturgy and Devotion: Manuscripts from England to Ethiopia, featured liturgical and devotional texts from Europe and non-Western countries, curated by Lesley T. Stone. In 2007, the Library completed its fourth exhibit, Beyond the Quill … Printed Books, 1450-1500, also curated by Stone, featured incunabula, or, books printed before 1501. This exhibition included the first annual Sacred Leaves Symposium. The Sacred Leaves Graduate Symposium is sponsored by the USF Tampa Library Special and Digital Collections. Graduate students and recent recipients of M.A.s and Ph.Ds are invited to present papers on a specified topic or theme.  The Symposium, which includes a keynote address by a prominent scholar, draws emerging scholars from around the world to USF each winter.

2010 will mark the Library's Fourth Annual Sacred Leaves Graduate Symposium, whose keynote speaker and senior scholar is Dr. David Nirenberg, the Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Professor - John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, Department of History, and in the College - The University of Chicago.

Digitial images of individual leaves (manuscript and printed) used in all the exhibitions are available for research in the  Sacred Leaves Collection.

Graphics by Pam Ward-Reagan