Exhibition "Inter folia: Invisible Histories of Books"

The exhibition "Inter folia: Invisible Histories of Books" is presented in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Room of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, inviting visitors to look at a book not only as a text, but also as a material object that accumulates traces of time.

Every book preserves more than just what is written in it. Between its pages are forgotten letters, dried flowers, drawings, tickets, apologies for late returns, and sometimes even documents. These findings turn the book into a witness of everyday life – an object that has accompanied people in their personal stories.

In the exhibition, the book also reveals itself as a recycled object. In one 17th-century work, 46 fragments of earlier books were discovered, including a leaf from an incunable illustrated in the workshop of the famous German graphic artist and painter Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Nearby are fragments of a collection of pericopes by the Jesuit Georg Elger (c. 1585–1672) containing parts of Latvian text, used to reinforce the cover of a manuscript booklet. Here, different times, languages, and masters meet in one volume.

Traces of reading tell individual stories: inscriptions, dedications, and right there, a note left by the active public and cultural figure Marija Piaseckaitė-Šlapelienė (1880–1977) stating that she is keeping this book for herself as a memento. The book becomes not only reading material but also a place of memory.

Another part of the exhibition reveals the book as a hiding place – a place where money, documents, and family trees were kept. Alongside them are children's drawings, photographs, religious images, and dried plants. It is a space where text meets everyday life.

A separate segment is dedicated to the books of the Benedictine monastery. The objects found in them reveal the reading practices of a closed religious community and their relationship with the book – restrained, yet profound.

"Inter folia" invites you to rethink the book as a multi-layered cultural object, the history of which is created not only in the printing house but also between the pages – where text and human meet.

Visitors will be able to view the exhibition from May 18 to July 4 in the National Library's Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Room (5th floor).

Reading room opening hours:

Monday–Friday 10:00–19:00

Saturday 10:00–18:00

Exhibition curators Justyna Sadovska, Agnė Suchodolskytė, exhibition designer Jokūbas Zovė.