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Overview

Laurent Ferri currently serves as Curator of the pre-1800 Collections in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, aka "RMC". Before joining Cornell as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2006, he was "conservateur du patrimoine" at the French National Archives (2000-5). He has more than twenty years of teaching experience, notably at the ?cole nationale d'administration in Rabat, Morocco, at the ?cole des chartes in Paris, and (mostly, of course) at Cornell (incl. full-semester, credit-bearing courses, plus innumerable show and tell presentations and workshops in the Library). A former student (for his dissertation) of Michel Pastoureau, a historian of colors and pioneer of animal studies, Laurent has authored four books and (at least) thirty-seven articles or book chapters.

Born in Lyons, the city that received his Italian paternal grandparents, he knows some French, English, German (which he tends to speak with an Austrian accent since an internship in the Kriegsarchiv in Vienna), Italian, Rumanian, Latin, ancient Greek, and even a bit of Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. 

An avid pianist and judoka, he's also interested in foreign relations and diplomacy. In Ithaca, he's the proud co-owner of a Victorian house designed in 1873 by William Henry Miller, which he lovingly restores with "the other Laurent". 

See: Who's Who in America (since 2010)

Research Focus

•  Art History and Iconology
• History of Science and Education (esp. the pedagogy of the Jesuits)
• International Relations, Diplomacy, and War
• History of Libraries, Archives, and Museums
• Islamicate Studies
• Philology and Translation Studies

Awards and Honors

Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (France), 2016

Professional Experience

Curator of rare books and manuscripts (pre-1800 Collections), and Adjunct Faculty at Cornell, 2007-present

Director of the Library, Chantilly Castle and Museum, 2017-18 

Visiting Assistant Professor, Cornell University, 2006-7

Curator, Archives nationales (Paris), 2000-2005

Archivist, ?tablissement Cin¨¦matographique et Photographique des Arm¨¦es (Fort d'Ivry), 1996-7 [Military Service] 

Publications

1. Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Un savant-machine ¨¤ l'¨¨re baroque,  Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 280 p. Scheduled for January 2026.

2.  The Tr¨¨s-Riches Heures du duc de Berry:  The Glory of the Medieval Book, Paris and New York: Skira, 2019, 80 p. Foreword by Michel Zink. 

3. L¡¯Histoire-Bataille ; L'¨¦criture de l'histoire dans l'oeuvre de Georges Bataille [co-editor with Christophe Gauthier], Paris, Publications de l'?cole nationale des chartes, 2006, 150 p. Available online.

4. Ils racontent la mondialisation, de S¨¦n¨¨que ¨¤ L¨¦vi-Strauss, Paris: Saint-Simon, 2005, 274 p. Foreword by Laurent Joffrin.  

EXHIBITIONS

1/ Co-Curator [with Henrik Spoon] of ¡°Solar Eclipses: from Fear to Knowledge¡±, an exhibition in RMC from April 9 to June 1, 2024. 

2/ Co-Curator [with Andrew Weislogel] of the ¡°Visions of Dante¡± exhibition created at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum between Sept. 14 and Dec. 19, 2021, with a symposium, an online preview, and [for the first time at Cornell] a full virtual tour of the exhibit made available online.

3/ Curator of the exhibition for the 300th anniversary of the publication of Daniel Defoe¡¯s novel, Robinson Crusoe, RMC, May 2019.

4/ Curator of the exhibition ? America ! La Maison d¡¯Orl¨¦ans et les ?tats-Unis d¡¯Am¨¦rique, 1777-1895 ?, Cabinet des Livres du Mus¨¦e Cond¨¦ (Chantilly), May-October 2018.

5/ Co-Curator [with Andrew Weislogel, Johnson Museum] of ¡°Surrealism and Magic¡±, at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca) and then at the Boca Raton Art Museum (Florida), August 2014-June 2015.

6/ Co-Curator [with Andrew Weislogel, Johnson Museum] of the exhibition ¡°The New and Unknown World: Art, Exploration, and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age,¡± September-October 2011. Paper catalog published by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, 80 p.

7/Co-curator of an exhibition about the 16th-century Renaissance, Spring of 2010, Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, with Andrew Weislogel. 

8/ Curator of the "Samuel Johnson at 300" exhibition in the Rotunda, RMC, August-October 2009

9/ Curator of "Lafayette, Citizen of Two Worlds", Cornell University, Kroch Library, RMC, September 2007-June 2008. Bilingual paper catalog by L. Ferri, The Cornell Library, 2007, 46 p. 

VIDEOS

1/ "The Proud Symbolism of Heraldry", Posted on October 15, 2015, 48 minutes

2/ "Printing the Qur'an in the 16th Century", Posted on March 8, 2017, 51 minutes

3/ "Islamic Libraries: A Short History", Posted on August 4, 2020, 62 minutes

SCHOLARLY ARTICLES, SHORT ESSAYS, BOOK CHAPTERS, AND LECTURES

1. ? Mazarin et les mazarinades dans la litt¨¦rature pour la jeunesse, 1870-1940 ?, in Revue du GRHis,  num¨¦ro ? Mazarinades et territoires ? (S. Haffemayer and P. Rebollar eds.), Rouen, 2025 [online].
2. "Pliny the Elder in Books, from Manuscript to Print", in Verity Platt and Andy Weislogel (eds.), Wonder and Wakefulness. The Nature of Pliny the Elder, Cornell University Press, 2024.
3. ? Chantilly-on-the-Potomac, Chantilly Farm, Chantilly City et Chantilly Airport aux ?tats-Unis ?, Cahiers de Chantilly, 2023, p. 64-76.
4. ¡°? L¡¯?cole des chartes et les ?tats-Unis ?, Biblioth¨¨que de l'?cole des chartes, 2022, p. 323-341.
5. ? Un conservateur atypique pour Chantilly : Philippe P¨¦tain ?, in M¨¦langes en l'honneur de Jean-Michel Leniaud, Paris : Dalloz, 2019, p. 58-69.
6. [With Bernard Barbiche] ? Ren¨¦ Girard [Obituary] ?, in Biblioth¨¨que de l¡¯?cole des Chartes, Paris, 2019, p. 542-548.
7. ? Avide d¡¯Ovide. H¨¦ro?des et m¨¦tamorphoses dans l¡¯?uvre d¡¯H¨¦l¨¨ne Cixous ?, in St¨¦phanie Boulard (ed.), Ententes ¨C ? partir d'H¨¦l¨¨ne Cixous, Paris : Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle, 2019, p. 131-147.
8. ¡°The Ambivalent Censorship of Medieval Science in 16^th Century Spain: The Example of the 1491 Hortus Sanitatis¡±, Rare Books Digest, 2019 [online].
9. ? Le seul livre illustr¨¦ par Rembrandt ?, in Nicole Garnier and Jaco Rutgers, Rembrandt ¨¤ Chantilly, Dijon : Faton, 2018.
10. ? La Biblioth¨¨que du duc d¡¯Aumale ?, in Chantilly, le Domaine des Princes, Paris : Swan, 2017, p. 405-434.  Prix Drouot des amateurs de livres d¡¯art 2018.
11. [With Gra?ina Subelyt?] Kurt Seligmann - On Magic, Sugar Loaf, New York: The Kurt Seligmann Center, 2017, 30 p.
12. ? La correspondance d¡¯?tienne Joly, pr¨¦cepteur du prince Louis de Cond¨¦, avec plusieurs membres de la famille d¡¯Orl¨¦ans, 1842-1891 ?, Bulletin du Mus¨¦e Cond¨¦, novembre 2017, p. 34-39.
13. [With Ruth Mullett, Louisa Smieska, and Arthur Woll], "Trace Elements in Natural Azurite Pigments Found in Illuminated Manuscript Leaves Investigated by Synchrotron X-Rays Fluorescence and Diffraction Mapping", Journal of Applied Physics, 2017, vol. 123 [online].
14. ? Inter Folia Venenum. Les collections de mazarinades aux ?tats-Unis (1865-2014) ?, proceedings of the international conference ? Mazarinades, Nouvelles Approches ? (dir. St¨¦phane Haffemayer, Patrick Rebollar, and Yann Sordet), published in Histoire et Civilisation du Livre, Gen¨¨±¹±ð : Droz, 2016, p. 69-77. Available online.
15. [¡°Back to the Sources of the History of Chinese-Western Language Dictionaries¡±], in Ìì»ÂÛ´Ô, March 2016, p. 137-55, article in Chinese.
16. ? Culture Campus/Culture Camping ?, in Commentaire, 2014/1, p. 115-136.
17. "Ver Sacrum: The Most Beautiful Art Journal Ever!", in Rare Books Digest, 2014 [online].
18. "Modish Monsters", in The Coat of Arms, Journal of the Heraldry Society (UK), July 2013, p. 117-23.
19. [Avec Donatien Grau].  ? Une lettre in¨¦dite de Jacques ?mile Blanche ¨¤ Ernst Robert Curtius [on Marcel Proust] ?, in the Bulletin d'informations proustiennes, nr. 42, 2012, p. 33-37.  
20. ? L'Empire des biblioth¨¨ques. Les collections europ¨¦ennes dans les universit¨¦s am¨¦ricaines, ou comment se faire doubler (1625-2000), lecture delivered at the ?cole des chartes on February, 7, 2012, transformed into an essay and made available online.  
21. ¡°Early Modern Dutch Books in Cornell¡¯s Special Collections,¡± in A New and Unknown World: Art, Exploration, and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 2011, p. 16-21.
22. ? Disparues sans fant?mes : Les biblioth¨¨ques de Wyndham Lewis ?,  in Les Biblioth¨¨que d¡¯artistes, Paris: Institut national d¡¯histoire de l¡¯art et Presses Universitaires de la Sorbonne, 2010, p. 283-93.
23. ¡°A Different Take on the Biographical Phenomenon: Samuel Johnson's Status in Literary History as Explained by the Development of Literary Tourism,¡± in The Harvard Review, 2010.
24. ? Mon cher ami... Les Lettres d'Alibert ¨¤ Pierre Laroque, 1926-1940 ?,  in J. Cotillon (ed.), Rapha?l Alibert, Juriste engag¨¦ et homme d'influence ¨¤ Vichy, Paris: Economica, 2009, p. 75-97.
25. Annotations relatives ¨¤ la vie politique in T. Sarmant and S. Gar?on (eds.), Gouvernement et Haut Commandement au d¨¦clin de la IIIe R¨¦publique, Paris: Comit¨¦ des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, 2009.
26. ? Moreau ?, ? Brasillach ?, ? Maulnier ?, in A. Callu and P. Gillet (eds.), Lettres ¨¤ Charles Maurras. Amiti¨¦s politiques, lettres autographes, 1898-1952, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 2009.
27. ? L¡¯H¨¦raldique des jeunes filles (16e-18e si¨¨cles) ? in Les Femmes et l¡¯¨¦criture de l¡¯histoire, Rouen : Presses universitaires de Rouen, 2009, p. 513-528.
28. ? Fukuyama, ou la Chauve-Souris  ?, in Labyrinthe, 32, June 2008, p. 77-82.
29. ? Deux coups de th¨¦?tre : Sartre, le Nobel, et le refus de venir ¨¤ Cornell, 1964-65 ?, in Labyrinthe, 32, June 2008, p. 135-146.
30. "Cornell and the Marshall Plan (1947-51)", in Cornell International Affairs Review, volume I, issue II, 2008, p. 7-16.
31. "Thomas Jefferson and France", in Claire Germain (ed.), Two Nations, one Vision of Liberty, Ithaca: Cornell Law School, 2007, p. 22-25
32. ? (Men)songes archivistiques et v¨¦rit¨¦s romanesques, de Daniel Defoe ¨¤ H¨¦l¨¨ne Cixous ?, in Martine Aubry et al. (eds.), Archives, archivistes, archivistique dans Europe du Nord-Ouest du Moyen-Age ¨¤ nos jours, Publications de l'Institut de recherches historiques du Septentrion, 2007, p. 255-269.
33. ? La mluridisciplinarit¨¦ en France apr¨¨s Mai 68 ?, in Labyrinthe, 2007/2, p. 25-36.
34. ? ?mile Zola et ces messieurs de l'?cole des chartes  pendant l'Affaire Dreyfus ?,  in Biblioth¨¨que de l'?cole des chartes, vol. 164-2, 2006, p. 595-603.
35. ? Histoire-Bataille ? ?, in L. Ferri et Chr. Gauthier (dir.) L¡¯Histoire-Bataille ; L'¨¦criture de l'histoire dans l'oeuvre de Georges Bataille, Paris : Publications de l'?cole nationale des chartes, 2006, p. 11-19.
36. ? Les intellectuels s'int¨¦ressent-ils au patrimoine ? ?, Livraisons d'histoire de l'architecture, 2003, p. 129-153.
37. ? Le chartiste dans la fiction litt¨¦raire (XIXe et XXe si¨¨cles) : une figure ambigu? ?, in Biblioth¨¨que de l'?cole des chartes, vol. 159, 2001, p. 615-629.

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