Event Description

For the next online lecture at The Grolier Club (NY), Tara Nummedal (Brown University) will speak on Furnace and Fugue, a digital edition of Michael Maier’s 17th-century Atalanta fugiens with Scholarly Commentary, which she co-edited with Donna Bilak.

In 1618, on the eve of the Thirty Years War, the German alchemist and physician Maier published an intriguing and complex musical alchemical emblem book designed to engage the ear, eye and intellect. The book unfolds as a series of 50 emblems, each of which contains a motto, a copperplate etching, an epigram in German and Latin, and an accompanying “fugue,” music scored for 3 voices.

Thanks to Drs. Nummedal and Bilak, Atalanta fugiens is now available as an open-access, layered, interactive digital publication from the University of Virginia Press. Maier’s multimedia project is re-rendered with modern enhancements that allow for deep engagement by specialists and non-specialists alike. Furnace and Fugue also includes 3 short introductory essays and 8 extended interpretative essays. Q&A, moderated by Neil Safier, Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, will follow the lecture.

Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 6pm– 7:30pm EST

Source: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/grolier-club-tara-nummedal-online-lecture-tickets-126468662173

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