Online Blockbooks Innovative Failure Fifteenth Century Europe

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Join John McQuillen, Associate Curator of Printed Books and Bindings, for an online lecture on the current exhibition, Graphic Devotions: Late Medieval European Blockbooks. Blockbooks, often referred to as “medieval graphic novels,” were the first print-on-demand books in the West. These highly illustrated books were made by skilled woodcut books craftsmen and published over a thirty-year period until 1480 when the woodcut was surpassed by new typographic printing techniques. In this richly-illustrated online lecture, McQuillen provides insight into this short period in European book history, examining what a blockbook is and how they were made, their relationship to manuscripts and early printed books, their uses in the medieval period, and where the books are held today.

This is an online lecture. Attendees will receive a Zoom link on the morning of the program.

John T. McQuillen is Associate Curator of Printed Books & Bindings. He specializes in European late medieval and Renaissance book history, particularly incunabula (books printed from 1450–1501), blockbooks, and bookbinding, and has published on library history and the commercial networks of book printers. He has curated exhibitions on William Caxton, the first English book printer; Martin Luther and the media revolution of the Reformation; the Renaissance artist Hans Holbein; and 18th-century French bookbindings. He also organized for the Morgan the record-breaking exhibition loaned from the Bodleian Library on J.R.R. Tolkien.

Please e-mail public_programs@themorgan.org with questions about accessibility.

Ars moriendi (Blockbook). Netherlands (or Lower Rhine), approximately 1467–1469. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray, Curt F. Bühler, L. Colgate Harper D-1, and Henry S. Morgan Reference Funds, and as the gift of T. Kimball Brooker, Martha J. Fleischman, Mr. G. Scott Clemons and Ms. Karyn Joaquino, Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Tom Lentz, and Mr. and Mrs. Larry R. Ricciardi, 2022. The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 198786.

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225 Madison AvenueNew York, NY 10016(212) 685-0008

The programs of the Morgan Library & Museum are made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.