U of A to Host Symposium on Medieval Literature and Illuminated Manuscripts

The U of A will host a two-day interdisciplinary symposium, "Boccaccio's Decameron: New Perspectives Between Text and Image," on Feb. 24-25, 2026, bringing together scholars, students and community members to explore new approaches to the Decameron across literature, art history, manuscript studies, gender studies and media.

Organized by the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections Division and the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, the symposium will take place at Mullins Library and the World Languages & Digital Humanities Studio. The program includes scholarly talks, workshops, exhibitions, conversations and a film screening examining how the Decameron has been read, illustrated, reproduced, translated and adapted from the medieval period to the present. The full schedule can be viewed on the Libraries' website.

The symposium opens Tuesday, Feb. 24, with the debut of the exhibition "Facsimiles: The Magic of Reproductions," organized by Sara Barclay, exhibits and outreach archivist. The exhibition explores the role of high-quality facsimiles in preserving and studying medieval illuminated manuscripts.

Following the opening, Giovanni Scorcioni, founder of Facsimile Finder, will lead a workshop introducing participants to the history, craftsmanship and technical processes behind facsimile production. The session will highlight the balance between scientific precision and artistic interpretation required to reproduce illuminated manuscripts.

Later that afternoon, Scorcioni will join Joshua Youngblood, associate dean for Special Collections, for a public conversation titled "Fine Press Facsimiles vs. Digital Images." The discussion will compare printed facsimiles and digital reproductions of medieval manuscripts, focusing on their distinct scholarly applications and limitations.

Programming continues Wednesday, Feb. 25, with a full day of scholarly presentations addressing themes such as gendered authority, animal symbolism, translation and adaptation, obscenity and framing, medicine and contagion, and the visual culture of Decameron manuscripts and early printed books. Speakers include U of A Honors students as well as invited scholars from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, George Mason University and the University of Chicago.

The second day will also feature the opening of a companion exhibition, "Boccaccio Between Text and Image," organized by Barclay and Daniela D'Eugenio, assistant professor of Italian, in collaboration with U of A Italian major and minors. The exhibition highlights manuscripts, printed editions and visual interpretations of Decameron.

The symposium will conclude with a screening of the 2024 medieval comedy television miniseries, The Decameron.

"This symposium brings together material objects, scholarly inquiry and student research to show how the Decameron continues to generate new questions across disciplines," Barclay said. "By pairing exhibitions with workshops and conversations, we wanted to create opportunities for both specialists and the public to engage directly with the visual and textual afterlives of Boccaccio's work."

All events are free and open to the public.