Acknowledgements
This volume consists of essays redacted from papers originally delivered at the colloquium, Customised Books in Early Modern Europe and the Americas, 1400â1700, held at Emory University on October 14â16, 2021. Organised under the aegis of the Art History Departmentâs Lovis Corinth Endowment, the colloquium was the eleventh in the ongoing series of such events convened annually at Emory. Kay Corinth and her sister Mary Sargent established the endowment to honor the memory of Kayâs father-in-law, the celebrated painter Lovis Corinth. The Corinth Colloquia provide an interdisciplinary forum for the comparative study of early modern northern art. Dr. Lia Markey, Director of The Newberry Libraryâs Center for Renaissance Studies, offered unstinting support for this project. I am especially grateful to the Centerâs Assistant Director, Christopher Fletcher, who co-organised the three-day colloquium and, over the next year and a half, co-edited the ensuing volume. Sarah McPhee, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Art History and Chair of the Art History Department, encouraged and facilitated Customised Books in Early Modern Europe and the Americas amidst the many complications attendant upon a post-pandemic conference. Corinth Graduate Associates Annie McEwen Maloney and Alexandra Zigomalas assisted in preparing and implementing the colloquium, and Ms. Zigomalas served afterward as an ideal editorial assistant. For her administrative support, I am beholden to Blanche Barnett, Academic Department Administrator. I also want to thank Chris Sawula, the departmentâs former Visual Resources and Spatial Art History Librarian, for consulting with the IT team tasked with managing the colloquium. Finally, an immeasurable debt of thanks is owed to Linnea Harwell, Graduate Program Coordinator in Art History, the person without whom the colloquium could never have been realised, who took matters great and small in hand and managed them with consummate grace, skill, intelligence, and savoir faire.
Desidero eam corona immortalitatis gratiarum cingere.
Walter S. Melion