Golden Leaves: Medieval Manuscript Fragments at Colby

In April 2016, Maine bookseller Seth Thayer, Colby Class of ’89, found a cache of medieval manuscript leaves “in a trunk in a client’s house in Maine.” A Google search investigating the leaves led him to manuscript scholar Lisa Fagin Davis, who identified all of the leaves as having been sold by the notorious mid-20^th-century book-breaking team of Otto F. Ege and Philip Duschnes. The leaves were acquired by Colby soon afterward. By tracing the journeys undertaken by these manuscript fragments from their medieval origins to their dismantling at the hands of the biblioclasts to their discovery in a trunk in Maine, Davis will address the leaves not only as artifacts of medieval book production and liturgical practice, but also as evidence of early 20^th-century biblioclasm on the part of sellers and connoisseurship on the part of buyers.

Cosponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, the English and Art Departments, and Special Collections.