Banned books exhibition

This video from the USA says about itself:

Avila Fine Arts Lovers Hostess Sherry Avila interviews Curator, Dr. Roberto Severino, Professor Emeritus, Italian Department of Georgetown University, D.C., about Science and Faith Between Observance and Censorship: Rare Books from the Libraries of Campania from XVI to XVIII Centuries. This exhibition of the Roman Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books (librorum prohibitorum) and rare volumes listed in the Index from 1550 to 1750 focuses on scientific and religious books banned by the Church following the Counter Reformation. Often beautifully illustrated, these volumes are written by famed authors such as Girolamo Cardano, Copernicus, Duns Scotus, Euclid, Galileo and Girolamo Savonarola.

Curated by Dr. Roberto Severino, Professor Emeritus of Classical History at Georgetown University, and Dr. Loredana Conti, Superintendent of Libraries, Regione Campania, Italy, the exhibition includes books from the Biblioteca Universitaria di Napoli, Biblioteca Provinciale di Salerno, Biblioteca S. Francesco del Convento di San Francesco and Biblioteca Landolfo Caracciolo. Organized by Regione Campania and Italian Muse. Sponsored in part by the Italian Cultural Institute.

From ANSA news agency in Italy:

2009-08-28 12:40

Cortona spotlights banned books

Ovid, Boccaccio, Galileo, Darwin in Tuscan town

Cortona, August 28 – This Tuscan town is hosting an exhibition in celebration of historic books outlawed during their day for their radical sexual, religious, political and scientific ideas. I Libri Proibiti (The Forbidden Books) showcases over 40 volumes dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries, on loan from collections belonging to London’s renowned antiquarian bookseller, Quaritch, and Italy’s Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation. …

The Satyricon, a banned book by French alchemist and physician Nicolas Barnaud, contains a painstakingly detailed and accurate list of the mistresses, prostitutes, illegitimate children and servants of churchmen in every diocese of 16th-century France.

An English-language Koran published in 17th-century London, translations of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and detailed Renaissance anatomical studies, drawn from outlawed human dissections, are among the other forbidden works on display.

The exhibition, divided into themes, draws out developments in thought over the centuries.

In particular, it points out that the Catholic Church’s register of banned publications, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, is practically a Who’s Who of modern Western thought. Works by Galileo Galilei, Dante Alighieri, Nicolaus Copernicus, Giovanni Boccaccio and Charles Darwin all appeared on the register at some point during its 400-year history. The exhibition can be visited at Palazzo Vagnotti until September 6.