Research Talk by Carlotta Barranu

Talk Title: ECycles of knowledge: ‘discoveries’ in historical library collections

The talk was delivered on 5 February 2025 by Carlotta Barranu, teaching on the module ‘Manuscript Studies’ at UCL, as part of the DIS research seminars series.

This paper reflects on a recent ‘discovery’ in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle: an early 16th-century philosophy manual assembled for the students attending the Faculty of Arts at the University of Leuven. The existence of this textbook is mentioned in documents pertaining to the University, but was presumed ‘lost’ due to the lack of known copies. The volume in the Royal Library is therefore not simply unique but also potentially meaningful in contributing to our understanding of the impact of print on the early university. The paper will assess this potential by analysing the volume and by providing an initial scope of its significance for the history of higher learning. It will then reflect on this “lost&found” process: how the cycle of gathering, storing, forgetting, and rediscovering knowledge informs the creation of categories of importance, which in turn affects object survival.

Charlie Barranu is Curator of Books and Manuscripts at the Royal Library, Windsor Castle. She previously held research positions at the University of Cambridge after getting her PhD in medieval literature. She has been teaching on the module ‘Manuscript Studies’ at UCL since 2019.