Comparative Studies in Manuscript CulturesInternational Conference in Honour of François Déroche

12 October 2022

Photo: Nuria de Castilla

From 20-21 October, a conference with the title ‘The Pen, the Page, the Book’ will be held in El Escorial, Spain. Organised by Nuria de Castilla and Michael Friedrich, the event takes place in honour of the renowned codicologist and palaeographer François Déroche.

In the fields of Oriental and Arabic Studies, François Déroche has been an influential figure for many years. In the course of his career, the professor of Histoire du Coran, Texte et transmission at the Collège de France has contributed significantly to the understanding of the textual history of the Qur’an and in particular its various textual versions. From 20 to 21 October, the conference 'The pen, the page and the book. Comparative Studies in Manuscript Cultures' will be held in his honour in San Lorenzo de el Escorial, Spain. The two-day event is organised by Nuria de Castilla and Michael Friedrich and will feature panels on 'Early Islam and Qur’anic Manuscripts', the 'Safavid and Ilkhanid World', the 'Ottoman World', 'The Saadian collection in the El Escorial library', and 'Written Culture'. The full programme can be downloaded here.

Moreover, the conference will feature the launch of the book Les livres du sultan. Matériaux pour une histoire du livre et de la vie intellectuelle du Maroc saadien (XVIe siècle), written by François Déroche, Nuria de Castilla, and Lbachir Tahali. The book is one of the main outputs of the project ‘SICLE (Saadian Intellectual and Cultural Life)’, which is funded by the European Research Council. It offers a history of the Saadian sultans’ library, which is exceptionally well preserved as a ‘time capsule’ in the library of the El Escorial monastery, from its beginning in 1578 until the moment it reached the Escorial library. Based on the Saadian collection, the book sheds light on the manuscripts production, scripts, and reading and readers during this period. The final part analyses the contents of each of the thematically sections of the library.