Exhibition at Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek HamburgThe Manuscripts of St Catherine's Church

30 September 2022

Photo: Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg

From 5 October to 15 December, the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek presents a wide range of medieval and early modern manuscripts from St Catherine’s Church in Hamburg. The multifaceted exhibition also makes use of ink analyses carried out at CSMC.

The exhibition shows richly decorated written artefacts from the 15th and 16th centuries that were produced for liturgical use. Moreover, an extensive collection of letters and manuscripts from the 16th to 18th centuries tell the history of their time. Many of the codices shown in the exhibition have chequered histories themselves: they arrived in Hamburg by various routes, were lost during the war, and later returned through fortunate circumstances.

One part of the exhibition deals specifically with the material analysis that played a vital role in the study of the manuscripts on display. For instance, ink analyses allow researchers to understand when and under what circumstances a manuscript was produced and how it was used over time. Among other things, two X-ray fluorescence devices from CSMC’s Mobile Lab, Artax and Jet Stream, were used for the investigations at hand. On part of CSMC, Ira Rabin, Principal Investigator of the projects ‘Recovery of Damaged Writing’ and ‘History of Writing: Black Inks and Writing Surfaces’, and Katerina Grigoriadou, an MA student and student assistant at CSMC, contributed to the exhibition.

The opening of ‘Kirche, Klerus, Kodizes’ (‘Church, Clergy, Codices‘) is on 4 October, 6:00 pm, at Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg. The exhibition can be visited there until 15 December, entrance is free of charge. More information on the exhibition and how to register for the opening and public tours is available here.