Merchants of Print: from Venice to Manchester

The story of how the world-leading collection of Aldines found its way to the industrial heartlands of nineteenth and early twentieth century Manchester is an object lesson in cultural translation and a vital chapter in the history of knowledge transfer and the emergence of nineteenth-century ‘bibliomania’. Through an examination of the provenance of both specific Aldine collections, like those of George John 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834) and the political economist Richard Copley Christie (1830-1901) and the accession of individual volumes like those found in the bequests of the gynaecologist David Lloyd Roberts (1835-1920) and in the library of the Northern Congregational College, this exhibition will examine the geneaology of the Manchester Aldine collection. The trajectory of specific volumes within it, such as those owned by the likes of Pietro Bembo, Jean Grolier, Henri II and Agostino Barbarigo, will be woven into a consideration of the nexus of social, political and educational relationships through which the relation of cultural and financial capital were negotiated by Manchester’s nineteenth-century merchant princes.