Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan is a Japanese academic and author.

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Keio University , mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword , type = Private research coeducational higher education institution , established = 1858 , founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa , endowmen ...

since 2009, he is an authority on medieval English literature and medieval English manuscript studies and a collector of antiquarian books. As Director of Keio University's Humanities Media Interface Project (HUMI) he has led the digital documentation, facsimile reproduction, and distribution of many rare medieval books and manuscripts including the

Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed b ...

and Chaucer's

Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus' ...

Early life and education

Takamiya was born in Tokyo in 1944. He graduated from Keio University with a BA in Economics in 1966 and subsequently studied at the same university for both a BA and MA in English Literature, graduating in 1968 and 1970 respectively.

Academic research and professional positions

Under Takamiya's direction, the HUMI team at Keio University has made digital reproductions of sixteen sets of the Gutenberg Bible at seven institutions, including in 2000, both full-text facsimiles held in the collection of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

. The high resolution images have facilitated comparative bibliographical research on early

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...

printing methods and are available for public access on the respective library websites. Since 1986 Takamiya has been a Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

. Professor Takamiya has been awarded honorary degrees by the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

(1998) and the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

(2011). From 2000 to 2004 Takamiya served as a trustee of the

New Chaucer Society The New Chaucer Society is a professional academic organization dedicated to the study of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Middle Ages, founded in 1979. Its predecessor, the original Chaucer Society, had been founded by Frederick James Furnivall in 1868 a ...

. In 2004 a festschrift was published in his honor: ''The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: essays in honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya''. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer .

Loan to the Beinecke Library

In 2013 Takamiya deposited on long term loan his private collection of rare medieval books and manuscripts at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...

. Assembled over 40 years, the collection includes 51 items, including three copies of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a copy of Chaucer's

A Treatise on the Astrolabe ''A Treatise on the Astrolabe'' is a medieval instruction manual on the astrolabe by Geoffrey Chaucer. It describes both the form and the proper use of the instrument, and stands out as a prose technical work from a writer better known for poet ...

, and several

Wycliffe's Bible Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of English theologian John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. These Bible translati ...

References

External links

Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 19 October 2009 (video)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Takamiya, Toshiyuki 1944 births Living people Keio University faculty Academics of the University of Glasgow Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London English literature academics