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, noticeably at the École nationale d'administration in Rabat, Morocco, at the École 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 of Michel Pastoureau, a historian of colors and pioneer of animal studies, Laurent has authored four books and (at least) thirty-six 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 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
Chief curator of the Library, Chantilly Castle and Museum, 2017-18
Visiting Assistant Professor, Cornell University, 2006-7
Curator, Archives nationales (Paris), 2000-2005
Archivist, Établissement Cinématographique et Photographique des Armées (Fort d'Ivry), 1996-7 [Military Service]
Publications
1. Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Un savant-machine à l'ère baroque, Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 280 p. Scheduled for January 2026.
2. The Très-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'écriture de l'histoire dans l'oeuvre de Georges Bataille [co-editor with Christophe Gauthier], Paris, Publications de l'École nationale des chartes, 2006, 150 p. Available online. http://books.google.com
4. Ils racontent la mondialisation, de Sénèque à Lévi-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.
https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/visionsofdante/introduction.php
https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/visionsofdante/tour.php
https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/visionsofdante/events.php
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/09/visions-dante-seeing-italian-poet-new-eyes
3/ Curator of the exhibition for the 300th anniversary of the publication of Daniel Defoe’s novel, Robinson Crusoe, RMC, May 2019.
https://www.facebook.com/Cornell.Rare/posts/10157245904159727
4/ Curator of the exhibition « America ! La Maison d’Orléans et les États-Unis d’Amérique, 1777-1895 », Cabinet des Livres du Musée Condé (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.
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/surrealismandmagic
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/ Curator of "Lafayette, Citizen of Two Worlds", Cornell University, Kroch Library, RMC, September 2007-June 2008. Bilingual paper catalog by Laurent Ferri, The Cornell Library, 2007, 46 p.
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/lafayette/
8/ Co-curator of an exhibition about the 16th-century Renaissance, Spring of 2010, Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, with Andrew Weislogel.
http://www.museum.cornell.edu/earthlyparadise/index.html
VIDEOS
1/ "The Proud Symbolism of Heraldry", Posted on October 15, 2015, 48 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njK2eS-eg24
2/ "Printing the Qur'an in the 16th Century", Posted on March 8, 2017, 51 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpmvtwag1vw
3/ "Islamic Libraries: A Short History", Posted on August 4, 2020, 62 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1grUPVnyIQ
SCHOLARLY ARTICLES, SHORT ESSAYS, AND BOOK CHAPTERS
- « Mazarin et les mazarinades dans la littérature pour la jeunesse, 1870-1940 », in Revue du GRHis, numéro « Mazarinades et territoires » (S. Haffemayer and P. Rebollar eds.), Rouen, 2025 [online].
- "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.
- « Chantilly-on-the-Potomac, Chantilly Farm, Chantilly City et Chantilly Airport aux États-Unis », Cahiers de Chantilly, 2023, p. 64-76.
- “« L’École des chartes et les États-Unis », Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, 2022, p. 323-341.
- « Un conservateur atypique pour Chantilly : Philippe Pétain », in Mélanges en l'honneur de Jean-Michel Leniaud, Paris : Dalloz, 2019, p. 58-69.
- « René Girard », in Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, Paris, 2019 [avec Bernard Barbiche], p. 542-548.
- « Avide d’Ovide. Héroïdes et métamorphoses dans l’œuvre d’Hélène Cixous », in Stéphanie Boulard (ed.), Ententes – À partir d'Hélène Cixous, Paris : Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle, 2019, p. 131-147.
- “The Ambivalent Censorship of Medieval Science in 16th Century Spain: The Example of the 1491 Hortus Sanitatis”, Rare Books Digest, 2019 [online].
- « Le seul livre illustré par Rembrandt », in Nicole Garnier and Jaco Rutgers, Rembrandt à Chantilly, Dijon : Faton, 2018.
- « La Bibliothèque 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.
- [With Gražina Subelytė] Kurt Seligmann - On Magic, Sugar Loaf, New York: The Kurt Seligmann Center, 2017, 30 p.
- « La correspondance d’Étienne Joly, précepteur du prince Louis de Condé, avec plusieurs membres de la famille d’Orléans, 1842-1891 », Bulletin du Musée Condé, novembre 2017, p. 34-39.
- [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].
- « Inter Folia Venenum. Les collections de mazarinades aux États-Unis », Actes du colloque « Mazarinades, Nouvelles Approches » (dir. Stéphane Haffemayer, Patrick Rebollar, and Yann Sordet), Genève : Droz, 2016, available online.
- [“Back to the Sources of the History of Chinese-Western Language Dictionaries”], in 天禄论丛, March 2016, p. 137-55, article in Chinese.
- « Culture Campus/Culture Camping », in Commentaire, 2014/1, p. 115-136.
- "Ver Sacrum: The Most Beautiful Art Journal Ever!", in Rare Books Digest, 2014 [online].
- "Modish Monsters", in The Coat of Arms, Journal of the Heraldry Society (UK), July 2013, p. 117-23.
- [Avec Donatien Grau]. « Une lettre inédite de Jacques Émile Blanche à Ernst Robert Curtius, sur Marcel Proust », in the Bulletin d'informations proustiennes, 2012 (33).
- “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.
- « Disparues sans fantômes : Les Bibliothèque de Wyndham Lewis », in Les Bibliothèque d’artistes, Paris: Institut national d’histoire de l’art et Presses Universitaires de la Sorbonne, 2010, p. 283-93.
- “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.
- « Les Lettres d'Alibert à Pierre Laroque, 1926-1940 », in J. Cotillon (ed.), Raphaël Alibert, Juriste engagé et homme d'influence à Vichy, Paris: Economica, 2009.
- Annotations relatives à la vie politique in T. Sarmant and S. Garçon (eds.), Gouvernement et Haut Commandement au déclin de la IIIe République, Paris: Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, 2009.
- « Moreau », « Brasillach », « Maulnier », in A. Callu and P. Gillet (eds.), Lettres à Charles Maurras. Amitiés politiques, lettres autographes, 1898-1952, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 2009.
- « L’Héraldique des jeunes filles (16e-18e siècles) » in Les Femmes et l’écriture de l’histoire, Rouen : Presses universitaires de Rouen, 2009, p. 513-528.
- « Fukuyama, ou la Chauve-Souris », in Labyrinthe, 32, June 2008, p. 77-82.
- « Deux coups de théâtre : Sartre, le Nobel, et le refus de venir à Cornell, 1964-65 », in Labyrinthe, 32, June 2008, p. 135-146.
- "Cornell and the Marshall Plan (1947-51)", in Cornell International Affairs Review, volume I, issue II, 2008, p. 7-16.
- "Thomas Jefferson and France", in Claire Germain (ed.), Two Nations, one Vision of Liberty, Ithaca: Cornell Law School, 2007, p. 22-25
- « (Men)songes archivistiques et vérités romanesques, de Daniel Defoe à Hélène Cixous », in Martine Aubry et al. (eds.), Archives, archivistes, archivistique dans Europe du Nord-Ouest du Moyen-Age à nos jours, Publications de l'Institut de recherches historiques du Septentrion, 2007, p. 255-269.
- « La mluridisciplinarité en France après Mai 68 », in Labyrinthe, 2007/2, p. 25-36.
- « Émile Zola et ces messieurs de l'École des chartes pendant l'Affaire Dreyfus », in Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, vol. 164-2, 2006, p. 595-603.
- « Histoire-Bataille ? », in L. Ferri et Chr. Gauthier (dir.) L’Histoire-Bataille ; L'écriture de l'histoire dans l'oeuvre de Georges Bataille, Paris : Publications de l'École nationale des chartes, 2006, p. 11-19.
- « Les intellectuels s'intéressent-ils au patrimoine ? », Livraisons d'histoire de l'architecture, 2003, p. 129-153.
- « Le chartiste dans la fiction littéraire (XIXe et XXe siècles) : une figure ambiguë », in Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, vol. 159, 2001, p. 615-629.