Author: Ava Chapman When I began to work for the BASIRA Project (Books As Symbols In Renaissance Art), I was drawn in by the meticulous record making. The ability to categorize each small piece of information about a book in order to assist researchers was captivating. I grew up in a letterpress printing and book binding studio, which has had a strong impact on my … Continue reading Reflection: BASIRA Research Fellowship (Fall 2025 and Spring 2026)

The BASIRA project is delighted to have been selected as the Bibliographical Society Council’s Choice for December 2025! Founded in 1892, the Society is the senior learned society dealing with the study of the book and its history. As the announcement states, BASIRA is “a database that a user can browse happily for hours,” and “has the potential to grow into an extremely valuable resource … Continue reading BASIRA is the Bibliographical Society Council’s Choice for December 2025

On 1 October 2025 the BASIRA (Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art) Project celebrated the publication of its 3,000th Document Record, a mere 16 months after achieving the 2,000 milestone. This increase represents an average of more than two new records per day! Such spectacular growth is due largely to the dedication and expertise of the project’s student Content Team, which has been meeting on … Continue reading BASIRA now includes over 3,000 Document Records

As is fitting for an expanding resource dedicated to the study of early modern book history, BASIRA was represented in full force at the bi-annual meeting of the Early Book Society, held at New York University from June 23rd to 27th, 2025. Over the course of a week, approximately 100 scholars gathered to explore a fascinating theme: Readers, Makers, and Medieval Consumer Culture: Manuscripts and … Continue reading BASIRA in New York

The BASIRA team is delighted to announce the launch of several enhancements to our search interface. You are cordially invited to take a fresh look at the site. Please let us know what you think about the changes! Tool Tips We think that the most helpful enhancement for many users will be the deployment of “tool tips,” which provide concise explanations of specialized terms. If … Continue reading Newly Improved! Enhancements to the BASIRA Interface

In Boston, on March 21 2025, four scholars and an engaged audience explored the topic of “Text-in-Image” during our session at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America. Panel co-organizers Nicholas Herman and Barbara Williams Ellertson had invited work that explored the unique affordances of script within a visual field, dealt with the synergies of image and script, or considered writing as a … Continue reading BASIRA at RSA 2025: “Text-in-Image in Early Modernity”

BASIRA is not just about records in a database: it is also about building communities of shared interest. Thus, when several members of the faculty of Wellesley College expressed an interest in uses of BASIRA in their humanities curriculum, members of the BASIRA team were pleased and energized. Thanks to an invitation from Drs. Yoon Lee, Martha McNamara, and Bailey Ludwig, Barbara Williams Ellertson visited … Continue reading Visit to Wellesley College

In the Fall of 2024, the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania was pleased to host Sophia Adams, a doctoral candidate a the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, on a three-month Placement funded by the Consortium for the Humanities & the Arts South-East England (CHASE). During her time at Penn, Sophia was primarily engaged in contributing to the BASIRA Project. Click … Continue reading CHASE Doctoral Researcher Sophia Adams Reflects on her Contributions to BASIRA

On December 3rd, Nicholas Herman gave a lecture at Rutgers University as part of the Art History Graduate Student Organization Distinguished Speaker Series entitled “The Painted World of Books.” Early modern painting was the ultimate metamedium, capable of describing a vast array of objects on a two-dimensional plane. Or so it seems. Depictions of books, in particular, provide a locus for understanding painters’ nuanced relationships … Continue reading Lecture: The Painted World of Books

On November 12th, 2024, Nicholas Herman and Barbara Williams Ellertson gave a talk at Duke University about the use of images in BASIRA as evidence of historic bookbinding practices. Duke University’s Franklin Humanities Institute and Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library co-sponsored this event. Members of the Triangle Book Arts group, who are chiefly involved with such contemporary book-making practices as papermaking, zinemaking, printmaking, and … Continue reading Lecture: Book Binding in Works of Art: A survey of historical evidence in medieval and early modern art