Greg Clark lecture on Book of Hours 2 5 20

The fifteenth century was pivotal in the transformation between the Middle Ages and the modern era; around 1450, Gutenberg’s printing press began to revolutionize the printed word, for the first time democratizing access to information. Prior to that, books—mostly in the form of bound illuminated manuscripts—were handmade and extraordinarily expensive to produce. In this discussion held in Doheny Memorial Library, Professor Greg Clark examines the importance of two manuscripts in the USC Libraries Special Collections, followed by a hands-on look at the works. Clark teaches at Sewanee: The University of the South in Tennessee, where he specializes in manuscript illumination from northern France and the southern Netherlands. This is the inaugural talk in a series on the pre-history of the book, cosponsored by USC Libraries and USC Center for the Study of the Premodern World.