“Go forth and learn”: The Artist Joel ben Simeon and a Newly Discovered Hebrew Manuscript (c. 1 440-1492), Webinar

October 22, 2020 1:00 to 2:30 PM (Eastern Time) (=19:00 to 20:30 Continental European Time)

I Am The Scribe, Joel Ben Simeon

PRESS RELEASE

FULL DESCRIPTION AVAILABLE HERE

Born in Germany, where he trained as an artist and scribe and from where he was probably expelled, Joel ben Simeon spent most of his itinerant career in the book arts in northern Italy.  We perhaps know more about him – from his colophons and his signed works – than any other illuminator-scribe, Jewish or Christian, in the fifteenth century.  He depicts himself as a traveler in one manuscript next to the words “Go forth and learn,” which we hope to accomplish in this Webinar. The discovery of a new manuscript with more than 300 drawings by his hand prompts a reassessment of his career at a time of great religious uncertainty, economic opportunity, and cultural exchange

Organizers

Sandra Hindman, Professor Emerita of Art History, Northwestern University, and President and Founder, Les Enluminures and Sharon Liberman Mintz, Curator of Jewish Art, The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Senior Consultant, Judaica, Sotheby’s

Speakers

Professor Katrin Kogman-Appel, University of Muenster, Institut fur Judische Studien, previously taught at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (1996-2015).  Professor Kogman-Appel has published extensively on medieval Jewish art and book culture and is particularly interested in Hebrew manuscript illumination and its cultural and social contexts.

Professor Lucia Raspe, Goethe Universitaet, Frankfurt am Main. Professor Raspe has published widely on late medieval and early modern Jewish communities, including the migration of German Jews to Italy, on manuscript and print culture.