Diane E. Booton – Författare

Manuscripts, Market and the Transition to Print in Late Medieval Brittany surveys the production and marketing of non-monastic manuscripts and printed books over 150 years in late medieval Brittany, from the accession of the Montfort family to the ducal crown in 1364 to the duchy's formal assimilation by France in 1532. Brittany, as elsewhere, experienced the shift of manuscript production from monasteries to lay scriptoria and from rural settings to urban centers, as the motivation for copying the word in ink on parchment evolved from divine meditation to personal profit. Through her analysis of the physical aspects of Breton manuscripts and books, parchment and paper, textual layouts, scripts and typography, illumination and illustration, Diane Booton exposes previously unexplored connections between the tangible cultural artifacts and the society that produced, acquired and valued them. Innovatively, Booton's discussion incorporates archival research into the prices, wages and commissions associated with the manufacture of the works under discussion to shed new light on their economic and personal value.

This book examines commercial and personal connections in the early modern book trade in Paris and northwestern France, ca. 1450–1550. The book market, commercial trade, and geo-political ties connected the towns of Paris, Caen, Angers, Rennes, and Nantes, making this a fertile area for the transference of different fields of knowledge via book culture. Diane Booton investigates various aspects of book production (typography and illustration), market (publishers and booksellers), and ownership (buyers and annotators) and describes commercial and intellectual dissemination via established pathways, drawing on primary and archival sources.

Manuscripts, Market and the Transition to Print in Late Medieval Brittany surveys the production and marketing of non-monastic manuscripts and printed books over 150 years in late medieval Brittany, from the accession of the Montfort family to the ducal crown in 1364 to the duchy's formal assimilation by France in 1532. Brittany, as elsewhere, experienced the shift of manuscript production from monasteries to lay scriptoria and from rural settings to urban centers, as the motivation for copying the word in ink on parchment evolved from divine meditation to personal profit. Through her analysis of the physical aspects of Breton manuscripts and books, parchment and paper, textual layouts, scripts and typography, illumination and illustration, Diane Booton exposes previously unexplored connections between the tangible cultural artifacts and the society that produced, acquired and valued them. Innovatively, Booton's discussion incorporates archival research into the prices, wages and commissions associated with the manufacture of the works under discussion to shed new light on their economic and personal value.

Roman Ambitions explores papal politics and humanist culture through the biographical framework of Thomas James (d. 1504), a Breton cleric who spent nearly two decades in Rome. The Italian Wars (1494–98) waged by King Charles VIII are often considered a seminal turning point in the reception of humanist ideals at the French courts, but some historians place Thomas James among the forerunners. Did Thomas James, in fact, influence the transmission of Renaissance culture to parts of France? This study investigates that contention by examining textual, visual, and material sources regarding his identity, activities, and social milieu in Italy and France. Castellan of the Castel Sant’Angelo under Sixtus IV, familiare of the Riario household, and apostolic secretary under Innocent VIII, James had inside knowledge of the Pazzi Conspiracy against the Medici family. Learned in Latin rhetoric from his advanced legal education, he dined with prominent humanists, including Giulio Pomponio Leto, founder of the Accademia romana. James was an important eyewitness, an adaptive and pragmatic passenger between cultures, whose life offers a lens through which to observe Church politics and cultural transmission in early modern Europe.The monograph’s subject and themes will appeal to an audience of academics, scholars, and advanced postgraduate students in the humanities, particularly historians in late medieval and Renaissance studies.