The director of the Italian National Library at Naples will deliver a series of lectures Tuesday through Thursday, Nov. 11-13, in the Harold B. Lee Library auditorium on the Brigham Young University campus.
Mauro Giancaspro will discuss bibliomania--the preoccupation with the acquisition and ownership of books-- from his new work, "The Disease of Gutenberg," as well as lecture on reading, book collecting and the history of Italian libraries.
The lectures will take place at 4 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday and at 11 a.m. Thursday. They are free and open to students, faculty and the community.
Giancaspro is in Utah to meet with members of the Institute for Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts at BYU, who have been working with the Italian library during the past two years to decipher and preserve a collection of ancient papyri scrolls found at Herculaneum, which were burnt and nearly destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D 79.
BYU researchers used multispectral imaging technology to read and document the writings on the damaged scrolls.
Giancaspro has been a key intermediary between the Italian government and BYU with the project.
For more information about the lectures, visit http://library.byu.edu or call Mike Hooper at (801) 422-6687.
Writer: Thomas Grover
