The Vatican Film Library and its journal, Manuscripta, annually host the Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies. The conference, known familiarly as the Manuscripta Conference, has no set theme and serves as a general forum for manuscript scholars to meet and discuss their work with colleagues. Each year a distinguished scholar is invited to deliver the Fr. Lowrie J. Daly, S.J., Lecture on Manuscript Studies. Topics addressed at the conference range from Antiquity through the early modern period and include, but are not limited to:

Thirty-Sixth Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies
Saint Louis University
16–17 October 2009

Guest Speaker:

Patricia Stirnemann (Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes)
"The Albani Psalter: One Man's Spiritual Journey"

Abstract
For over one hundred years the Albani Psalter has intrigued, confounded and amazed medievalists. Many of its unusual features have been described, but not all have been explained, and some have gone as yet unnoticed. The historiated initials have proven particularly hermetic. Each illustrates a chosen verse, written out like a titulus at the head of the psalm or on a book held by someone within the initial. The verses referred to are sometimes bizarre, buried deep within the psalm, and the meaning of their illustration is not always clear to the modern observer. This presentation will offer new readings for many of the more obscure illustrations and point out new sources, themes and interrelationships that link the initials with the lives of the abbot Geoffrey of Gorron and the anchoress Christina of Markyate. The result is one of the most moving examples in existence of the monastic appropriation of the Psalter. 

• Program
• Abstracts
• Registration (PDF)
• Conference Hotel, Directions, and Transportation