This symposium represents the culmination of research activities centered on the discovery at the Newberry Library of a unique Nürnberg manuscript written by Georg Rem (1561-1625) contained within the printed book Emblemata Politica (Nürnberg, 1617). Leading scholars from universities, libraries, and museums in the U.S. and Germany will present their research and analyze this important book and its relation to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century emblem books, literature, and art production. Broadly interdisciplinary, the presentations will focus on the arts, humanities, and politics of Nürnberg, one of the leading German commercial and artistic centers, at the time of its greatest flourishing.

Speakers: Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas at Austin; Tamar Cholcman, Tel Aviv University; Timothy Cole, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Silvia Glaser, Germanisches Nationalmuseum; Stephanie Leitch, Florida State University; Thomas Schauerte, Albrecht-Dürer-Haus; Werner Wilhelm Schnabel, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg; Victoria Gutsche, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg; Mara Wade, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Co-organized with Mara Wade, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Sponsored by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Deutscher Akademiker Austauschdienst, and the Goethe-Institut, Chicago.

Schedule

Thursday, September 27

Goethe-Institut Chicago

150 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 200

5:30 pm Keynote Conversation

Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas

The Exterior of Nuremberg Rathaus and the Art of Good Government

Thomas Schauerte, Albrecht-Dürer-Haus

Images as Language. Dürer, the Triumphal Arch and the Emblem in Nuremberg

6:30 pm Reception

Friday, September 28

Newberry Library

9:30 am Introduction

Lia Markey, Newberry Library

Welcome Remarks

Mara Wade, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Georg Rem’s “Inscriptiones picturæ et emblemata”: Nürnberg’s Town Hall Emblems in Context

10:15 to 11 am Collection Presentation

Presented by Mara Wade, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Newberry Library; Jill Gage, Newberry Library; Andrew Schwenk, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jessica Wells, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Christopher Fletcher, Newberry Library; and Stephanie Leitch, Florida State University

11 to 11:15 am Coffee

11:15 am to 12 pm Digital Presentations

Tim Cole, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Adding the Rem Manuscript to Emblematica Online, A Virtual Corpus for Research and Teaching

Christopher Fletcher, Newberry Library

The Emblemata Politica in Context: Digitally Sharing Rem's Manuscript and Its Stories

12 to 1:15 pm Lunch

1:30 to 3:15 pm Panel Discussion

Chair: Mara Wade, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Victoria Gutsche, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Rem’s Emblemata Politica in Context – Political Emblem Books in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century

Werner Wilhelm Schnabel, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Old and New Town Hall Emblems: Johann Conrad Rhumelius and the Emblemata curialia auctiora of 1629

Tamar Cholcman, Tel Aviv University

The Migration of Emblems through Nürnberg’s History: From Triumph to Civic Memory

3:15 to 3:30 pm Coffee

3:30 to 4:45 pm Panel Discussion

Chair: Christopher Fletcher, Newberry Library

Stephanie Leitch, Florida State University

Collecting Knowledge in Early Printed Books

Silvia Glaser, Germanisches Nationalmuseum

Emblematica politica in Early Modern Nürnberg. Some Examples of Applied Arts of the Seventeenth Century