The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries

“The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries,” a talk by Prof Andrew Hui (Singapore), who is currently a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, will take place at 6.15pm in Seminarraum 6. Drawn from his new book forthcoming with Princeton University Press, Hui’s talk engages with the life and enduring legacy of the Renaissance library by tracing how Europe’s cultural elite assembled personal libraries as refuges from persecutions and pandemics from the 15th century onward. His talk tells the story of the Renaissance studiolo – a “little studio” – and reveals how these spaces dedicated to self-cultivation became both a remedy and a poison for the soul.