English and Scottish Scholars at the Global Library: From Aleppo to Massachusetts (1500-1700)

1606年春天，塞缪尔·斯莱德来到巴黎，他的导师亨利·萨维尔爵士派他去欧洲和中东的图书馆搜寻希腊文手稿。他从巴黎到奥格斯堡的图书馆，又从奥格斯堡到慕尼黑和维也纳的藏书馆。1608年，在威尼斯匆忙抄写手稿后，他进一步冒险，寻找伊斯坦布尔、哈尔基岛甚至阿索斯山修道院图书馆的藏书。斯莱德的非凡之旅只是近代早期英格兰和苏格兰诗人、科学家和古物学家前往欧洲大陆、中东和北美图书馆的众多旅程之一。从西班牙埃斯科里亚尔的皇家收藏到新英格兰的私人图书馆，这些学者在他们参观的收藏上留下了自己的印记，他们注释手稿，交换文本，甚至做出了自己的贡献。通过重建这些学者的旅程和活动，该项目将重新审视早期的现代图书馆，它不仅是书籍的储存库，而且是一个充满活力的人、语言和文化的交汇点，通过它，盎格鲁-苏格兰学者对其东道国的文化和知识结构产生了重大影响。该项目有四个重点领域：(1)跨国界奖学金考察英国和苏格兰学者在国外图书馆开发和共享的文本、思想和科学发现，从希腊天文学的合作翻译到苏格兰与阿拉伯文学的第一次接触，以及这些访问学者为感谢他们的国际东道主而创作的原创作品。这一阶段的项目也揭示了这些互动如何鼓励海外英语学习，这在英语是一个非常大的语言池塘中的小鱼的时期是一种罕见的现象。(2)《图书馆访问》考察了盎格鲁-苏格兰学者是如何体验到早期现代图书馆的社会维度的，揭示了面对面交流所取得的成就，而面对面交流是无法通过书面通信复制的。从无法接受大学教育的女性，转向私人藏书来追求自己的奖学金，到将他们的国际东道主视为父亲的苏格兰游客，《图书馆访问》探索了社区对早期现代图书馆的重要性。(3)《运动中的图书馆》改变了图书馆固定、稳定、不变的观念。事实上，运动是早期现代图书馆的核心，从在意大利和西班牙图书馆找到避难所的天主教流亡者，到与早期殖民者一起穿越大西洋的藏书。(4)图书馆与避难所考察了该项目的中心主题——社区、运动和跨文化相遇——与当今图书馆的关系，探索公共图书馆如何鼓励和支持寻求庇护者的社会融合和心理健康。通过与难民和图书管理员的一系列访谈和研讨会，这一阶段提出了一个问题：今天的图书馆可以从过去的馆藏中获得什么？当我们谈到文艺复兴时期与英格兰和苏格兰的关系时，这些国家通常被理解为来自国外的文化和科学进步的容器：他们引进并改造了传统，从炼金术到彼特拉克的十四行诗。该项目揭示了英格兰人和苏格兰人通过他们在欧洲、北美和中东图书馆的存在所施加的影响，为17世纪末和18世纪更广泛的跨国联系铺平了道路。通过建立我对意大利私人图书馆的获奖研究，并通过拥抱广泛的原始档案材料，这个项目提供了一个全新的视角来看待全球图书馆和它所吸引的盎格鲁-苏格兰游客。

In Spring, 1606, Samuel Slade arrived at Paris, where he had been sent by his mentor, Sir Henry Savile, to scour the libraries of Europe and the Middle East for manuscript works in Greek. From Paris, he travelled to the libraries of Augsburg, and from Augsburg to the collections of Munich and Vienna. In 1608, having hastily copied manuscripts at Venice, he ventured further still, seeking out the collections of Istanbul, the island of Halki, and even the monastery libraries of Mount Athos. Slade's remarkable journey was just one of many undertaken by English and Scottish poets, scientists, and antiquaries throughout the early-modern period to the libraries of mainland Europe, the Middle East, and North America. From the royal collections of the Escorial in Spain to the private libraries of New England, these scholars left their mark on the collections they visited, annotating manuscripts, trading texts, and even making contributions of their very own. By reconstructing the journeys and activities of these scholars, this project will re-examine the early-modern library not merely as a repository of books, but as a vibrant meeting point of people, languages, and cultures, through which Anglo-Scots scholars exerted a substantial influence on the cultural and intellectual fabric of their host nations. The project has four key areas of focus: (1) Scholarship Across Borders examines the texts, ideas, and scientific discoveries which English and Scottish scholars developed and shared at libraries abroad, from collaborative translations of Greek astronomy to the first Scottish engagements with Arabic literature, as well as the original works which these visiting scholars composed as a thank-you to their international hosts. This stage of the project also reveals how these interactions encouraged the learning of English abroad, a rare phenomenon in a period when English was a small fish in a very large linguistic pond. (2) Library Access examines how Anglo-Scots scholars experienced the social dimensions of the early-modern library, revealing what was achieved through in-person exchanges that could not be replicated through written correspondence. From the women who, unable to access university education, turned to private collections to pursue their scholarship, to Scottish visitors who came to see their international hosts as father figures, Library Access explores the importance of community to the early-modern library. (3) The Library in Motion revises the idea of the library as something fixed, stable, and unchanging. In fact, movement was at the heart of the early-modern library, from the Catholic exiles who found sanctuary at the libraries of Italy and Spain, to the collections that crossed the Atlantic with the early colonists. (4) The Library and Refuge examines the project's central themes - community, movement, and cross-cultural encounters - in relation to the library today, exploring how public libraries can encourage and support social integration and mental well-being among asylum seekers. Through a series of interviews and workshops with refugees and librarians, this stage asks what might be gained for libraries today by looking to collections of the past.When we talk about the Renaissance in relation to England and Scotland, these countries are generally understood as receptacles for cultural and scientific advances from abroad: they imported and reworked traditions, from alchemy to the Petrarchan sonnet. This project reveals the influence that the English and Scots exerted through their presence in the libraries of Europe, North America, and the Middle East, paving the way for wider transnational inter-connectivity in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By building on my award-winning research on the private libraries of Italy and by embracing a broad range of untouched archival material, this project offers a radically new perspective on the Global Library and the Anglo-Scots visitors it attracted.