Consuelo W. DUTSCHKE (New York):

Digital Scriptorium as a Construction Site for Ascertained Manuscripts

At the annual meeting of the Digital Scriptorium partners in September a year ago, the group agreed to a proposal by Dr. Barbara Shailor to make DS into a “Construction Site” for four ascertained categories of manuscripts.  The proposed action will take the more than 5,700 manuscript records and 27,000 digital images already in DS and flag the entries according to these four categories:

• MSS dated by the scribe (as already exists)
• MSS signed by the scribe
• MSS signed by the artist
• MSS with explicit place of origin

There are presently just over 1,400 manuscripts that contain unverified data in these four categories, with 352 explicitly dated mss (= category 1), now retrievable; the new system will apply the same rigorous approach to categories 2-4.  An example:  the scribe of Harvard’s MS Typ 178 is stated in DS and in Harvard’s online catalogue to be Gundisalvus Hispanus, and both thank Dr. A. C. de la Mare for that attribution.  The scribe of Columbia’s Plimpton MS 120 is stated online to be Dominicus Firmanus; there is no acknowledgement of attribution but there is an image with the caption, “Scribal colophon.”  We, as manuscript scholars, understand the difference in certainty in the two identifications of scribe, but the computer does not.  The proposed new system will render each notion explicit and therefore searchable.

New DS technology will allow editors to access the data centrally and, with permission of the holding libraries, to modify the data (retroactively for extant descriptions) in all four categories in order to pinpoint those manuscripts which, themselves, are explicit about their origins.

Haut de page

Albert DEROLEZ (Ghent):

Corpus Catalogorum Belgii.
Towards the Conclusion of an Editorial Enterprise

In 1966 the first volume appeared, published under the auspices of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, of a series dedicated to the sources for the history of the medieval libraries in Belgium. It dealt with the booklists of institutions and persons situated or living in the present-day province of West Flanders. In 1994 the series was resumed, now with introductions in English. The first volume, augmented with newly discovered texts, was re-edited, and three more volumes appeared, covering the whole of Belgium and containing critical editions of 525 documents. In 2009 a supplementary volume (vol. VII) was published, being a repertory of all manuscripts and incunabulas which in the Middle Ages belonged to religious institutions and their members on the territory of Belgium (4735 items).

Two more volumes are due to appear shortly: the long-expected edition of all the medieval inventories of the library of the Dukes of Burgundy (vol. V), and the edition of the late medieval list of refectory readings of the priory of Zevenborren near Brussels (vol. VI).

Haut de page

Rudolf GAMPER (St. Gallen) - Christine GLASSNER (Wien):

Handschriftencensus, an inventory of  German medieval manuscripts:
state of the art and perspectives

Handschriftencensus (www.handschriftencensus.de) provides an online and open access inventory of the manuscript transmission of German mediaeval texts all over the world. On the one hand it offers manuscript descriptions on the other hand it is a repertory of mediaeval texts in German known so far. These two topics are linked with each other and to an exhaustive bibliography on mediaeval German manuscripts. The presentation will focus on recent developments and future perspectives of the project.

Haut de page

Odd Einar HAUGEN (Bergen):

The Medieval Unicode Font Initiative 

The Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI) is a non-profit workgroup of scholars and font designers who are working on the encoding and display of special characters in Mediaeval texts written in the Latin alphabet. MUFI has published a recommendation (now in v. 3.0) on how to use Unicode fonts for this purpose, and it has been instrumental in getting around 150 medieval characters into the Unicode Standard as of v. 5.1, especially in the code chart Latin Extended-D. It also offers Unicode fonts for free downloading, such as the Andron Scriptor Web font. For further details, please consult the MUFI web site at http://www.mufi.info

This report will discuss how characters and glyphs (to use Unicode terms) should be handled, and how a repertoire of glyphs can be useful in a number of paleographical contexts, whether in discussions of character variants or in the editing of medieval texts.

Haut de page

.Dalibor HAVEL (Brno):

Katalog der frühmittelalterlichen lateinischen Handschriftenfragmente
in Böhmen und Mähren

Eine sehr wichtige Voraussetzung für die wissenschaftliche Arbeit mit den fragmentarisch überlieferten schriftlichen Quellen bildet systematische Katalogisierung dieses Materials. Die Ergebnisse aus dem Studium der Handschriftenfragmente können nur verallgemeinert werden und Resultate von höherem Wert bringen, wenn man diese Betrachtung auf möglichst breite Quellenbasis begründet. Der in Vorbereitung befindliche Katalog basiert auf die Untersuchung in allen böhmisch-mährischen historischen Fonds, d. h. in Bibliotheken, Archivbeständen, Museen und auch Galerien. Bis jetzt enthält die Fragmentensammlung insgesamt 659 Inventarnummern, die dem Zeitraum von der Wende des 8. zum 9. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende des 12. Jahrhundert angehören, darunter sind etwa 40 Stücke frühkarolingisch. Auf ausgewählten Beispielen wird man die wichtigere und für das Verfahren mit fragmentarischer Quellenüberlieferung typische Aspekte presentieren, und zwar: Möglichkeiten der Rekonstruktion ursprünglicher Gestalt des Blattes, Vereinigung der einzelnen membra disiecta usw.

Haut de page

Georg VOGELER (München):

Paleography and Codicology in the Digital Age

The arise of new media and technology has promised great and substantial impact on accessibility of European cultural heritage. Its transformation into digital resources is undoubtedly on its way. There are various activities undertaken in this field: the creation of online catalogues including digital manuscripts facsimiles and the development of new tools for quantitative palaeographical research, to name just two among them. Considering this, the Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) started an initiative entitled “Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age” in 2009, aiming to explore the impact of this new situation on palaeographic and codicologic research. A first result of this initiative, the anthology “Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age” was launched at an international symposium in Munich in July 2009. Another volume is to be published by now, in autumn 2010. Both volumes encompass a whole plethora of related questions which can be unfolded as follows:

• Have principles and concepts in palaeographical research or codicological description changed? What kind of research is facilitated by digital resources that has not been possible before?
• How can questions about the history of script be addressed by digital methods? How and to what benefit can images of the manuscripts be processed automatically? To what extent are software-generated answers to codicological and palaeographic questions sustainable, verifiable and reliable?
• What kinds of databases are required in the future? How can electronic manuscript-catalogues and virtual libraries be brought together by means of comprehensive portals and hybrid research environments? To what extent can quantitative approaches and the analysis of codicological databases be complemented by a systematic exploitation of digital manuscript facsimiles? How can exhaustive semantic studies be facilitated?
• What impact has the “digital age” on teaching? How can manuscript-related research in the history of arts or in musicology be supported by digital tools and methodology? How can methods from the sciences successfully be applied to the analysis of manuscripts?

Based on the achievements of the initiative this paper tries to give answers to these questions and to give a prospect on future developments in codicological and palaeographical research.

Haut de page

.Sandro BERTELLI (Lausanne):

Les manuscrits de la littérature italienne des origines

Le projet de recherche, conçu à l’Université de Florence, a pour but le recensement et l’étude des manuscrits les plus anciens de la littérature italienne, à partir d’abord de ceux qui ont été préservés dans les bibliothèques principales de Florence (Medicea Laurenziana, Nazionale Centrale et Riccardiana), même si l’intention est d’étendre le projet à d’autres bibliothèques en Toscane et en Italie.

La relation présente les résultats de la recherche déjà achevés, en spécifiant soit les structures spécifiques des manuscrits en vulgaire, soit l’élément le plus évident (mais fréquemment aussi le plus difficile à interpréter) du livre, i.e. l’écriture.

On essaye de montrer - même si le fait est-il évident, par exemple, dans le cas des œuvres traduites en vulgaire italien, ainsi que dans la Commedia de Dante Alighieri – que l’adoption d’un genre graphique au lieu d’un autre était réalisée par les copistes avant tous les autres aspects matériels et, au contraire, que tous les éléments du rituel de la production du manuscrit étaient suggestionnés de façon différente par la préférence d’une typologie d’écriture spécifique ou, quand même, ils étaient fortement déterminés par l’écriture même. 

Haut de page

Giuseppina BRUNETTI (Bologna):

Gli autografi dei letterati italiani. Serie: le Origini e il Trecento

The project Autografi dei letterati italiani aims to realize a new census of the completed autograph tradition for the most important Italian writers from 13th to 16th centuries. The project is divided into three series and 12 volumes: Le origini e il Trecento (ed. by Giuseppina Brunetti, Maurizio Fiorilla, Marco Petoletti); Il Quattrocento (ed. by di Francesco Bausi, Maurizio Campanelli, Sebastiano Gentile, James Hankins; Il Cinquecento (ed. by di Matteo Motolese, Paolo Procaccioli, Emilio Russo). The first volume of the series Il Cinquecento has been published (Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2009, pp. 469 pp.); the first volume dedicated to the medieval authors will appear in 2011.

Emphasized by many important philologists at the beginning of the 20th century, the necessity of a repertory of autograph writings was reaffirmed in the last decades, into a comforting diffusion of philological studies. Based on this lack the project intends to create a sort of archive of autographs with a selected collection of images of the writings of the most important literates active in Italy between the 13th and 16th century.

Related to the project a series of studies and small volumes focused on specific questions is planned. The first of these small volumes will be dedicated to “Autografi francesi medievali” and will be published at the beginning of 2011.

Haut de page

Stefano ZAMPONI (Firenze):

Novissima palaeographica:
ongoing projects and perspectives

La relazione presenta in primo luogo la doverosa e tradizionale rassegna dei progetti promossi direttamente dal Comité International de Paléographie latine (e. g. Catalogues des manuscrits datés; Lexique international de codicologie) e dei lavori che nascono sotto il patronato del Comité (e.g. Monumenta Palaeographica Medii Aevi; IIMM). Sono presentati inoltre altri progetti di analoga importanza che non sono stati illustrati nel corso del Convegno. La relazione intende anche riflettere su alcune prospettive di lavoro che si aprono soprattutto nel campo della storia della scrittura e della descrizione dei manoscritti e individuare alcuni settori di intervento, che possono rappresentare nuovi campi di azione del Comité, anche in vista di una integrazione della ricerca in sede internazionale.

Haut de page

Maria GURRADO
Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes – CNRS, Paris
Supertvisors : D. Muzerelle (IRHT), M. Smith (Ecole nationale des chartes)

Graphem :
Les techniques d'analyse d'images au service de la paléographie

Le projet Graphem explore les possibilités d’application des techniques les plus récentes développées dans le domaine de l’analyse d’images à la recherche paléographique fondamentale. Elle vise à substituer des données objectives aux termes subjectifs couramment utilisés pour décrire les écritures médiévales.

Les principales techniques mises en œuvre sont :

• L’analyse globale de texture
• L’analyse des contours bit à bit
• L’analyse des contours par les « curvelets »

Ces procédures permettent de surpasser les limites de capacité de l’intuition et de la mémoire visuelle et de comparer instantanément des milliers de spécimens

D’autres techniques, dérivées de l’imagerie médicale, sont explorées en vue de décomposer l’écriture dans ses traits constitutifs et d’en retrouver le ductus.

Haut de page

Le système graphique des écritures médiévales

Le projet Système graphique et normes sociales : pour une analyse électronique des écritures médiévales propose l’analyse des différentes écritures par les « systèmes graphiques » (agencements des formes au sein d’une écriture). Il cherche à dépasser les classifications binaires et à mettre en relation les pratiques de l’écrit et les contextes sociaux de la production écrite.

Il consiste à

• étendre les observations allographétiques à l’ensemble de l’alphabet ;
• tenir compte du contexte de la lettre;
• mesurer la stabilité ou la variance au sein des ensembles.

Il s’appuie sur

• de larges corpus de données (CMD, fonds d’archives) ;
• des formats et standards pour favoriser l’interopérabilité des données (TEI, MUFI) ;
• des analyses factorielles (analyse statistique des corrélations entre différents phénomènes graphiques).

Il complète les démarches de reconnaissance optique des caractères en associant image et texte analysé.

Haut de page

Handschriftliche Überlieferung, Textgeschichte und Rezeption
von Augustins Werk Contra Faustum Manichaeum in Deutschland

Die um fangreiche Rezeption von Augustins Werk Contra Faustum Manichaeum (398-402, 33 Bücher) vom 5. bis zum 15. Jh. und eine große Anzahl von Excerpta-Handschriften dieses Werkes lassen darauf schließen, dass c. Faust. eine große Bedeutung für das ganze Mittelalter hatte.

In meiner Datei gibt es ca. 208 Handschriften: 99 Hss mit dem vollständigen Text und ca. 109 Hss mit den Exzerpten, die man in 10 Gruppen einteilen kann:

• Eugippius-Gruppe: 4 Hss aus dem 9.-12. Jh.
• Martyrologien-Gruppe (c. Faust. XX, 21): 5 Hss aus dem 9.-15. Jh. + die große Anzahl der Martyrologien
• Fleisch-Gruppe (C. Faust. XXXII, 13): 5 Hss aus dem 9.-12. (?) Jh.
• Deutsche Excerpta-Gruppe (C. Faust. I, 1; XII, 2 und 6 (verkürzt); 7-44; XV, 2-3 und 7 (verkürzt), 10, 11; XIX, 7-19; XX, 21 (verkürzt); XXI, 2, 3, 4 (nur die ersten zwei Sätze); XXII, 6-21, 25-98; XXXIII, 4-9.): 9 Hss aus dem 11.-15. Jh.
• Sünde-Gruppe (C. Faust. XXII, 27-29): 8 Hss aus dem 12.-13. Jh.
• Lactantius-Gruppe (c. Faust. XI, 5): 1 Hs aus dem 12. Jh. + 3 Hss aus dem 14. Jh. + 39 Hss aus dem 15. Jh.
• Salomon-Gruppe (c. Faust. XXII, 81 + XXII, 88): 6 Hss aus dem 11.-14. Jh.
• Lange Excerpta-Gruppe: 9 Hss aus dem 11.-18. Jh.
• Kurze Excerpta-Gruppe: 14 Hss aus dem 11.-15. Jh.
• Kurze Sätze aus c. Faust.-Gruppe: Hss mit Exc. ex Augustini operibus, exc. patrum, Flores s. Augustini

Der Forschungsschwerpunkt liegt auf der Überlieferung der Excerpta-Hss im deutschsprachigen Raum, denn eben dort wurden einige Excerpta-Gruppen vor allem verbreitet.

Ziel dieser Arbeit: die handschriftliche Textüberlieferung des c. Faust. im deutschen Sprachraum unter den verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten zu untersuchen.

Haut de page

:The influence of the epistolography on the spread of autography
between the 11th and 12th centuries 

The purpose of the project is to suggest and demonstrate that it was in the context of the epistolary practice that many authors of the 11th-12th centuries came to realise the usefulness of a strict control over their own text, which sometimes led to the suppression of all intermediaries in its production for purposes of accuracy, literary quality and secrecy. Particularly in friendship letters we can trace the development of a peculiar conception of writing as a somewhat personal and often intimate activity.

The letter-collections appear a very suitable source for such a reconstruction of the context in which some authors started to write with their own hand; moreover, identifying cases of autography through a textual analysis allows to value the cultural importance of authors of autographs even in cases in which their manuscripts didn’t reach us.

Haut de page

Correzioni di copista o correzioni di traduttore?
Indizi del carattere autografo del ms. Paris, BNF, fr. 688

Il manoscritto – Italia (sud), metà s. XIV; scritto da una mano in littera textualis libraria – è una raccolta di traduzioni di opere storiografiche. Si incontra nel ms. una serie di modifiche, apportate indubbiamente nel corso dell’esecuzione, che rivelano un atteggiamento attivo verso il testo da parte dello scriba. Si tratta di correzioni:

• Lessicali, non necessarie, immediate o introdotte in occasione di restituzioni dei passi omessi ;
• Riguardanti senso, desiderabili, richiedenti conoscenza del testo originale;
• Riguardanti senso, testimoni di una traduzione sempre in fieri;
• Conformi al modus operandi del traduttore, p. es. conversione della 1^a pers. dell’autore.

Conclusione: tali modifiche si spiegano meglio se la copia è stata eseguita (o dettata) dal traduttore.

Haut de page

Nataša KAVCIC
Univerza v Ljubljani, Filozofska fakulteta
Supervisor : N. Golob

The charters of the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia:
cadels and other decorative elements, 1351–1500

The study concerns 2642 charters from 1351–1500, kept in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia. The current analysis of cadels and other decorative elements has proven unity of internal and external characteristics of the charters issued by one individual as well as unity of their decoration. The hand kinesis performing the transcription and/or decoration is often overlooked by diplomatics even though it contributes to determining the charter’s provenance, points to the chancery’s customs (division of labour, using templates, etc.), emphasises the importance of the person issuing or receiving it, etc.

Cadels and other decorative elements represent the core of palaeographic study of this charter material however, the charters are also subject of codicological comparison. The documented charters often display the same features as those found in contemporary manuscripts. This is particularly true of calligraphically designed initials of the late 15^th century charters.

Haut de page

Le Viridarium de Jean Raynaud.
Une encyclopédie inédite du début du XV^e s.

Pratiquement ignorée dans l’historiographie du genre, l’encyclopédie Viridarium n’a jamais fait l’objet d’une étude en profondeur, lacune que notre édition critique tentera de combler. Ce texte du juriste avignonnais Jean Raynaud n’est conservé qu’en manuscrit unique et autographe à la Chester Beatty Library, WMs 80.

Entamé avant 1401 ce seul écrit non juridique de l’auteur a été complété et corrigé des années plus tard. L’œuvre latine est structurée en 22 titres et prend comme modèle un état textuel rare du Liber de natura rerum de Thomas de Cantimpré (13^e s.). Mettant l’accent sur la botanique et les applications thérapeutiques, elle est la seule encyclopédie médiévale comprenant des renvois aux livres de droit et des extraits des Otia imperialia pour marquer son ancrage local. Ses 225 dessins à la plume ont été exécutés parallèlement au texte. 

Haut de page

Michaelangiola MARCHIARO
Università di Firenze
Supervisor : S. Zamponi

L’esperienza grafica di un umanista fiorentino:
Pietro Crinito (1474-1507)

Sono illustrati:

1. L’educazione scolastica (1486-1491): l’apprendimento grafico sotto Paolo Sassi da Ronciglione (Firenze, B. Riccard., Ricc. 2621, f. 6v) ed Ugolino Verino (Firenze, B. Riccard., Ricc. 915, f. 64r): adozione dei modelli grafici in uso a Firenze nella seconda metà del Quattrocento.

2. L'elaborazione di una scrittura personale (1491-1494) realizzata, nella maggior parte dei casi, in maniera veloce e caratterizzata da varianti di lettera semplificate, in cui si riscontra l’adesione ai modelli grafici desunti dalla tradizione antiquaria (Firenze, B. Laur., Plut. 90 sup. 8, f. 140v; Firenze, B. Riccard., Ricc. 915, f. 10r).

3. Il magistero di Poliziano (post 1491), lo studio e l’utilizzo degli zibaldoni autografi del maestro (post 1495). Imitazione della scrittura del maestro (München, Bayer. Staatsbibl., Clm 748, f. 117v, rr. 1-2 di mano di Poliziano, rr. 3-4 di mano di Crinito) e degli usi del maestro: le formule di sottoscrizione (München, Bayer. Staatsbibl., Clm 756, f. 217r (mano di Poliziano): München, Bayer. Staatsbibl., Clm 748, f. 33v (mano di Crinito) l’introduzione della g aperta di modello antiquario (Firenze, B. N. C., A.3.21, c. a1r) e delle abbreviazioni di origine insulare per est ed enim (München, Bayer. Staatsbibl., Clm 748, f. 13r).

4. L’assoluta libertà nelle note personali ai limiti della leggibilità (München, Bayer. Staatsbibl., Clm 756, f. 221v).

Haut de page