Vatican Library is digitizing 1.5 million pages of ancient manuscripts
By Brian Dodson
03:59 April 23, 2012
Incunabulum of the Nurenberg Chronicle (1483), edited by Hartmann Schedel (Photo: I. Pilon/Shutterstock)
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Scholars, priests, historians, and followers of the da Vinci Files can now look toward the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (the Vatican library) with anticipation. In a five-year joint project with the Bodelian Libraries of the University of Oxford, the Vatican Library will work to digitize and post online some 1.5 million pages from Greek manuscripts, 15th-century printed books (incunabula), Hebrew manuscripts and early printed books.
Many of the manuscripts to be digitized have a striking beauty as well as historic and cultural importance, as in the 1476 Natural History of Venice. Incunabula would include the Gutenberg Bible and the Nuremberg Chronicle, although these may not be among the examples digitized. Greek manuscripts will include works by Homer, Plato, and the early Church Fathers. The Hebrew works include a ninth century copy of the Sifra, the Halakic Midrash to Leviticus (Midrash is a Talmudic teaching tool which leads the student to a deeper understanding of the text of the Torah) as well as a complete Bible from the 12th-century.
The initiative has been made possible by a £2 million (US$3.2 million) award from the Polonsky Foundation, whose founder, Dr. Leonard Polonsky, has a long standing passion and commitment to democratize access to information. Another recent major project made possible by contributions from the Polonsky Foundation is the digitization of the Bodleian’s exceptional collection of over 25,000 Cairo Genizah fragments, which can now be browsed and read online.
Perhaps the most exciting part of this project is that, being online, these remarkable (and physically beautiful) historical and philosophical volumes will be available to everyone with Internet access - a far cry from the days of guarding ancient texts against damage even from scholars. "Twenty-first century technology provides the opportunity for collaborations between cultural institutions in the way they manage, disseminate and make available for research the information, knowledge and expertise they hold," said Dr. Polonosky. "I am pleased to support this exciting new project where the Bodleian Libraries and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana will make important collections accessible to scholars and the general public worldwide." The date when materials from this project will first be available has not yet been announced.
