About the conference
Organizers
Two institutions have organised the Textus et Pictura conference from the outset: the Faculty of Fine Arts at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the University Library in Toruń. Since 2022, the conference has also been organised in cooperation with the Centre for Studies on the Civilisation of the Renaissance at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The forum was initiated in 2017 by Monika Jakubek-Raczkowska and Marta Czyżak. The first edition of the conference saw the presentation of the Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts of the University Library in Toruń.
Objectives
The Textus et Pictura conference is a cyclical forum that brings together researchers of medieval manuscript heritage from various disciplines, including historians, art historians, bibliologists, codicologists, philologists, paleographers, and monument conservators. The subject of the debates is the medieval codex as an integral whole, where the leather-bound block of parchment leaves carries writing and various types of decoration that carry content, meaning, aesthetic, and cultural value. The aim of establishing a large conference forum that is becoming increasingly internationalized over time is to confront scientific perspectives, discuss the results of monographic research, present current developmental research projects, and facilitate methodological reflection on research aspects, evaluation, and conservation priorities. This is achieved through papers discussed in thematic groups, project presentations, and round-table discussion panels. The entire undertaking is a crucial step towards the scientific integration of the dispersed, interdisciplinary, and multigenerational community, providing a foundation for designing joint research projects in the future.
The conference proceedings are published as monographs by the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press in the series “Studia nad skryptorium i SPuścizną Rękopiśmienną Średniowiecza” [“Studies on Scriptoria and Medieval Manuscript Heritage“] >>>
Subsequent meetings are modeled around a central theme, with each meeting also providing an opportunity to present research results and ongoing projects that are not directly related to the theme. Reflections are concentrated around thematic groups organized into blocks: Textus (content analysis and paleography); Liber (codicological analysis, book structure and binding, the history and state of preservation of manuscripts, and related issues); Pictura (analysis of the artistic forms and iconography of illuminated manuscripts); Musica (musicology and liturgy, musical manuscripts, and musical paleography). Libraria (libraries and collections);
Fragmenta (broadly understood research on relics of medieval books, including binding waste); Traditio (continuity of medieval tradition; the second life of the codex; methodological problems relating to description, documentation and digitisation; the state of preservation and protection of manuscript heritage as cultural heritage; and evaluation).
The scope of topics and the agenda of previous conferences are available here.