Director of the Gennadius Library Maria Georgopoulou enthralled book collectors and classics fans with her recent talk at the illustrious Grolier Club on some of the Library’s collection’s important rare editions, fine bookbindings, and “only known” copies that belonged to Greek diplomat and bibliophile Joannes Gennadius (1844-1932).
Gennadius wanted his magnificent personal library of 26,000 volumes to remain intact, in Greece and accessible to scholars internationally. His holdings have been preserved and expanded sixfold in a 1920s marble building on the campus of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. With highlights including early editions of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and a laurel wreath belonging to Lord Byron, the library sheds light on Hellenism, Greece, and neighboring civilizations from antiquity to modern times.
Georgopoulou was trained as an art historian, and her scholarly work explores the artistic and cultural interactions of Mediterranean peoples in the Middle Ages. Her monograph “Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies: Architecture and Urbanism” (Cambridge UP, 2001) examines the architecture of Venetian Crete. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and taught at Yale University (1992-2004), where she also founded the Program for Hellenic Studies.
During her tenure at the Gennadius Library, it has expanded its academic offerings and developed new outreach programs to attract and educate an ever-wider audience. These programs have resulted in the publication of a volume co-edited with Constantine Thanasakis, “Ottoman Athens. Archaeology, Topography, History” (2019) and two exhibition catalogs, “Ioannis Makriyannis. Vital Expression” (2018), and “The Free and the Brave. American Philhellenes and the ‘Glorious Struggle of the Greeks’ “
Watch the complete lecture here.
