The New York Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers presents:
THE GLAZIER CODEX – PML MS. 67
A Workshop with Julia Miller
At The New York Academy of Medicine
For more information or to register, please email newyork@guildofbookworkers.org
Workshop: September 22-24, 2011, 9:30-5:30 pm
The Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Lab
Please find directions to The New York Academy of Medicine here: http://www.nyam.org/about-us/directions.html
Description:
The Glazier Codex (named for the donor, William S. Glazier) contains a parchment manuscript of the first half of the Acts of the Apostles, written in Coptic and illuminated. The manuscript and its binding are thought to date from the 5th century. The place of discovery has not been revealed if known; the manuscript appeared in the antiquarian market in 1961.
The workshop goal is to make a full size model of the original binding. The original text consists of 15 gatherings of vellum sheets, 4 sheets (a quaternion) of vellum per gathering; we will be substituting paper. The sewing is a link style variation, and we will be adding simple link style endbands. The original boards are thought to be acacia and measure 4 ¾ H x 4 W x 5/16 TH; we will be substituting cedar wood. The Glazier Codex has a decorated leather spine piece that extends beyond the head edge of the spine, nearly covering (and thus protecting) the head edge of the text block. One theory is that the tail edge of the spine piece extended in a similar fashion to protect the tail edge of the text block. The Codex has two wrapping bands, one extending from the top edge of the upper cover, and one from the fore edge of the upper cover. Each wrapping band is finished with a decorated bone slip used to anchor the wrapped bands. There is evidence that the codex had a bookmark attached to the outer corner of the lower board.
Workshop lecture and discussion will compare early codex book formats found in Egypt using images and models of early structures to illustrate physical changes in the codex. The workshop organizers are planning a visit the Morgan Library and Museum on one of the workshop days to see the original Glazier Codex.
Basic bookbinding skills are required; we will not be paring the leather we use for the binding but we will be sanding wood and bone so please bring a face mask if you would like protection from fine particles. All materials will be provided by the instructor. Bring paper or vellum from your own collection to add into your text block if you wish.
Workshop Fee: $300 (GBW members)/$350 (non-members)
Materials Fee: $35
Instructor Bio:
Julia Miller is a bench-trained book conservator and was a senior conservator in the University of Michigan Conservation and Book Repair lab for many years. She has been in private practice since 1994 and for the last decade has concentrated on the study of historical bindings, building a private research and teaching collection to further that interest. In 2008, she received a Samuel H. Kress conservation publication fellowship administered by FAIC that enabled her to write a book on historical bindings: Books Will Speak Plain: A handbook for identifying and describing historical bindings, which was published by The Legacy Press in December 2010. During the fall of 2010 she received a Mellon Fellowship at The Library Company in Philadelphia to study American scaleboard bindings and is preparing an article on that topic. She is currently editing a collection of essays by different scholars on various aspects of the history of bookbinding that will be published in 2012. She has been guest curator for three exhibits on the history of the codex: Suave Mechanicals: Early to Modern Binding Styles in 2003; Elegant to Eccentric: Bindings from the Main Room of the William L. Clements Library in 2007; and Historical Bookbindings: A Thousand Years of Structure and Style in 2011.