In fall 2018, I completed a research fellowship at the Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB) in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, a collection of printed books and manuscripts founded in 1570. The library is situated in a small, well-preserved town, whose streets and buildings, dating from the early modern period, provided an inspiring backdrop for research. With funding from the HAB and Bard Graduate Center, and a travel award from the American Friends of the HAB, I spent two months conducting research for my dissertation, Taking Refuge in Print: Exiled Protestant Engravers from the Southern Netherlands in Cologne, 1585-1610. I investigate an understudied group of Netherlandish Protestant engravers who emigrated to Cologne in the late sixteenth century and transformed the print culture in their adopted city, collaborating with German Catholic publishers, before being banished around 1610. The HAB holds the highest concentration of printed books by the engraver-author Matthias Quad, whose work is my primary focus. I spent most of my time looking at his atlases and travel guidebooks, and those of his contemporaries, in order to understand his contributions to the dissemination of knowledge of global and local geography. An object of particular interest was Quad’s world atlas from 1600, which was the first to include original text composed in German. This aspect of my research brings printed maps into connection with more traditional subject matter and formats.

— Julia Lillie, doctoral candidate