Dr Israel is one of three Ahmanson Research Fellows for this academic year. She is here to examine books printed by the Aldine Press held at UCLA Library Special Collections which will enable her to complete research for her book manuscript. Her research analyzes the corpus of books that were published by the Aldine Press to identify printed books in Venice with overt or tacit political themes that related to Europe’s conflict with the Ottoman Empire and nostalgia for the Byzantine Empire as it receded.