From June 22 to 28, 2025, in partnership with the Atelier des Mille Universes, the TypoReF project (CESR, Tours) is organizing its summer school, The Tory College. Making a book in the 16th century :
- A week of immersion in a printing workshop for researchers (young and experienced), teachers and written heritage professionals.
- Teaching that combines lectures, tutorials and practical work, to know and understand typography and engraving during the Renaissance.
- A stay (accommodation, food expenses) covered by the organization thanks to financial support from the National Research Agency as part of the TypoReF project.
Online applications until January 15, 2025via the summer school website: factory.sciencesconf.org
Presentation
Defined as an “archeology of the printed book” (J.-F. Gilmont), the material bibliography is based on the careful examination of the original copies. Its practice requires the use of methods and know-how which themselves presuppose knowledge of book-making techniques. This is the reason why the main bibliography manuals devote long developments to the description of the tools, gestures and techniques of printing. But typography, considered through this theoretical teaching, remains for many researchers the object of abstract and often imprecise knowledge.
Aware that “learning through practice is more effective than teaching through discourse”, and convinced that “the best solution by far is to combine the two modalities”, the typographer Carl Rollins (1880-1960) and The bibliographer Andrew Keogh (1869-1953) created a “bibliographic printing press” at Yale University in 1927 intended to teach the history of the book to students. This initiative was emulated and, after Yale (1927), London (1933) and Harvard (1939), the movement to create “bibliographic presses” affected the main universities of English-speaking countries in the 1950s and 1970s. Long closed to material bibliography, French university education remained on the fringes of this movement.
The Fac-Tory aims to create, over the course of a week, a bibliographical press in Bourges, for researchers and professionals of ancient books who do not yet have practical experience of typography. After experimenting with this system for five years as part of master 2 “research workshops”, the Renaissance Center for Higher Studies and the Thousand Universes are now opening their doors more widely. Under a title which constitutes a double homage to the memory of Geoffroy Tory (pioneer of humanist typography, native of Bourges) and that of Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer (pioneer of material bibliography in France), this summer school combines courses lectures, demonstrations and practical workshops to give participants concrete knowledge of the work of Renaissance typographers.
Program, information & applications
The detailed program and application procedures are available online at http://factory.sciencesconf.org.
Calendar
- November 2024: distribution of the call for applications and the provisional program
- January 15, 2025: call for applications closes
- February 15, 2025: publication of results
- June 22, 2025: opening of the summer school
Organisation
Funded by the National Research Agency as part of the TypoReF project (“Typography of the French Renaissance, 1470-1640”), this summer school is organized by the Center for Higher Studies of the Renaissance (Tours) and the thousand universes (Bourges), in partnership with the city of Bourges (European capital of culture 2028).
- Scientific direction: Rémi Jimenes (University of Tours, CESR)
- Technical direction: Frédéric Terrier (Les mille univers, Bourges)
- Management :
- Renaissance Center for Higher Studies: Anna Baydova, Sandrine Breuil
- A thousand universes: Léna Alissant, Camille Savre
