Sunday, May 5, 2013

Digitizing history: 82,000-manuscript collection Vatican Library goes online


From: V.K.Durham@comcast.net
To: V.K.Durham@comcast.net
Sent: 5/3/2013 4:04:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Digitizing history: 82,000-manuscript collection Vatican Library goes online
 

Digitizing history: 82,000-manuscript collection Vatican Library goes online

snip

Little things slow down the process of putting 40 million pages of ancient manuscripts in the Vatican Library online: gold or silver in the illuminations, bindings that disintegrate if you open them, getting the synergy right.

“It is important to realize if there is gold or silver in a manuscript. That requires a very particular process because the light will be different,” said Luciano Ammenti, who is in charge of IT at the Vatican and the project to digitize the storied library’s 82,000 manuscripts.

The project, finally up and running a year after its announcement, uses an armada of equipment to capture the vast range of pages amassed by the Vatican over five or six centuries into one of the world’s most valuable collection of books and manuscripts.

But synergy trumps sharpness.

snip

They include the Vatican’s 8,900 incunabula (books printed before 1501): the Sifra, a Hebrew manuscript written a millennia ago, a 4th century manuscript of the Greek Bible and the De Europa of Pope Pius II, printed around 1491.

“This is our dream, to give all the world access to our manuscripts,” Ammenti said.

Vatican Library:


(This link keeps timing out. No doubt millions are trying to access it!!)



No comments: