[April 22, 2016] |
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Boston Public Library to Commemorate 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's Death with Two Exhibitions in Fall 2016
2016 marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's
death, and Boston Public Library and the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
will honor the Bard's lasting legacy with two exhibitions at the Central
Library this fall, as well as programming at library locations citywide.
Boston Public Library holds one of the largest and most comprehensive
collections of Shakespeare in a public institution, including the first
four folios of his collected works, 45 early quarto editions of
individual plays, and thousands of volumes of early source material,
commentaries, translations, manuscripts, and more.
"At some point in life, everyone has experienced the work of
Shakespeare," said Mayor Martin J. Walsh. "These opportunities at the
Boston Public Library give all the chance to learn more about the
creative genius of Shakespeare and how his legacy lives on today."
Shakespeare Unauthorized: Experience the original works of "The
Bard" Shakespeare Unauthorized, a major gallery
exhibition on view from October 13, 2016 through March 31, 2017, will
include extraordinarily rare first and early editions of familiar and
beloved plays like A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and The
Merchant of Venice, as well as all four Shakespearean folios, most
notably the BPL's own copy of the world-famous First Folio.
Through the pages of these precious books, visitors can experience
Shakespeare in his original language and spelling, just as he would have
been read by book lovers and theater-goers hundreds of years ago. Shakespeare
Unauthorized will take place in the McKim Exhibition Hall on the
first floor of the McKim building at the Central Library in Copley
Square.
Shakespeare Unauthorized is made possible through the financial
support of Iron
Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), a leader in storage and
information management services. Based in Boston, Iron Mountain (News - Alert) provides
charitable grants of funding and in-kind services to cultural and
historical preservation projects like Shakespeare Unauthorized all
over the world through its Living
Legacy Initiative.
"We're proud to help bring this exhibition to life in our home city of
Boston," said Ty Ondatje, senior vice president, Corporate
Responsibility and Chief Diversity Officer at Iron Mountain. "Our
philanthropic mission is to preserve and create access to our world's
cultural and historical treasures, those ideas and artifacts that make
up the human experience, so that they can be shared and enjoyed by
everyone. The works of Shakespeare are the very definition of these
shared treasures, informing so much of how we view and talk about
today's world, and we're extremely excited to underwrite the Library's
exhibition so they can make this collection available to all."
Shakespeare Unauthorized will contain far more than just books of
plays: this exhibition will feature surprising rarities and mysterious
objects; scandalous forgeries made by con men and accomplished scholars;
books from the luxurious private libraries of early English aristocrats;
and memorabilia from four centuries of acting and stagecraft.
Shakespeare's World: Charting a course through the settings of
Shakespeare's works The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at
the Boston Public Library, an independent, non-profit institution, will
feature a complementary exhibition Shakespeare's World opening
September 3, 2016 and running through February 2017, with associated
programming to be announced. William Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies,
and histories take place in a number of fascinating and often
picturesque locations throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, in eras from
classical times to the Renaissance. In this exhibition of forty maps,
images and three-dimensional objects, visitors will visit these locales
by seeing items from Shakespeare's lifetime, learning about the world in
the time of Shakespeare, and understanding the symbolic role that
geography held to the dramas.
Kronborg Castle in Denmark, known as Elsinore in Hamlet, will be
highlighted in the exhibition. A 1629 Dutch map depicting the Danish
Kingdom, along with a vignette illustrating "Elsenor," will be on
display. Complementing this map will be an original print of
"Cronenburg" from Samuel von Pufendorf's 1696 historical atlas.
Geographically-significant quotes from the dramas will set the stage for
the visitors, such as Marcellus' line from Hamlet, "Something is
rotten in the state of Denmark" (Act 1, scene 4). Visitors will also see
Heinrich Bünting's famous "Clover leaf map" from 1581 and Abraham
Ortelius' 1570 edition of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
"This is an unusual opportunity for visitors to see rarely displayed
treasures from the Boston Public Library's collection, as well as prized
maps from the collection of our founder Norman B. Leventhal, all helping
The Bard's world come alive to visitors," said Connie Chin, President of
the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.
Related public programs will take place citywide and a schedule is
currently in development.
About BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Boston Public Library has a
Central Library, twenty-four branches, map center, business library, and
a website filled with digital content and services. Established in 1848,
the Boston Public Library has pioneered public library service in
America. It was the first large free municipal library in the United
States, the first public library to lend books, the first to have a
branch library, and the first to have a children's room. Each year, the
Boston Public Library hosts thousands of programs and serves millions of
people. All of its programs and exhibitions are free and open to the
public. At the Boston Public Library, books are just the beginning. To
learn more, visit bpl.org.
About IRON MOUNTAIN Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM)
is a leading provider of storage and information management services.
The company's real estate network of more than 69 million square feet
across more than 1,100 facilities in 37 countries allows it to serve
customers around the world. And its solutions for records
management, data
management, document
management, and secure
shredding help organizations to lower storage costs, comply with
regulations, recover from disaster, and better use their information.
Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain stores and protects billions of
information assets, including business documents, backup tapes,
electronic files and medical data. Visit www.ironmountain.com
for more information.
About the NORMAN B. LEVENTHAL MAP CENTER The Norman
B. Leventhal Map Center is ranked among the top 10 map centers in the
United States for the size of its collection, the significance of its
historic (pre-1900) material, and its advanced digitization program. It
is unique among the major collections because it also combines these
features with exceptional educational and teacher training programs to
advance geographic literacy among students in grades K-12 and enhance
the teaching of subjects from history to mathematics to language arts.
The collection is also the second largest in the country located in a
public library, ensuring unlimited access to these invaluable resources
for scholars, educators, and the general public. The Leventhal Map
Center, created in 2004, is a nonprofit organization established as a
public-private partnership between the Boston Public Library and
philanthropist Norman Leventhal. Its mission is to use the Boston Public
Library's permanent collection of 200,000 maps and 5,000 atlases and a
select group of rare maps collected by Mr. Leventhal for the enjoyment
and education of all through exhibitions, educational programs, and a
website that includes thousands of digitized maps at maps.bpl.org. The
map collection is global in scope, dating from the 15th century to the
present, with a particular strength in maps and atlases of Boston,
Massachusetts, and New England.
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