Tag: Manuscripts

Vatican library to digitise 80,000 mss

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The story is here.

This project may be achieved over a span of 10 years divided into three phases, with possible intervals between them. In a preliminary phase the involvement of 60 people is planned, including photographers and conservator-verifiers, in the second and third phases at least 120. Before being able to initiate an undertaking of this kind, which is causing some anxiety to those in charge of the library (and not only to them!), naturally it will be necessary to find the funds. Moves have already been made in this direction with some positive results.

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Critical edition of the Koran in preparation?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ghost of a flea pointed me to jeff black, berlin, who writes:

A page from a 7th century Sanaa ms.
A page from a 7th century Sanaa ms.

German researchers preparing “Qur’an: The Critical Edition”

This is a serious business. A team of researchers at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences is preparing to bring out the first installment of Corpus Coranicum – which purports to be nothing less than the first critically evaluated text of the Qur’an ever to be produced.

 What this means is that the research team is in the process of analysing and transcribing some 12,000 slides of Qur’an mansucripts from the first six centuries of the text’s existence. Once that is complete, the way is open to producing a text that annotates and, presumably, provides some sort of exegesis on the differences found in the early manuscripts.

…

The Potsdam-based team of Corpus Coranicum have so far concentrated on Suras 18 to 20, and are due to produce a first slice of the final product from that in the next few weeks. The whole book is meant to take until around 2025.

UPDATE: The English language site seems to be down but the Google cache contains the following, seemingly from an old update:

Welcome to the Corpus Coranicum

The project “Corpus Coranicum” contains two unworked fields of qur’anic studies: (1) the documentation of the qur’anic text in his handwritten as well as orally transmitted form and (2) a comprehensive commentary which elucidates the text within the framework of its historical process of development.

Because of the ambiguity of the early defective writing system of the Qur’anic manuscripts, a strict separation of the data on the one hand provided by manuscripts and on the other hand transmitted via the tradition of recitation is recommended. The documentation of the Qur’anic text will provide a documentation for both traditions and compare them afterwards.

The planned commentary focuses on a historical perspective, the Qur’an seen as a text which evolved through the period of more than twenty years, thereby getting formal and content-related differences through abrogation and re-definitions within the text. Furthermore, the commentary is based on an inclusion of the judeo-christian intertexts and looks at the Qur’an as a document of the Late Antiquity. “Corpus Coranicum” is in the early stage of its development; the first results are planned to be published online in 2009.

That shows a very sensible approach.  You eat an elephant a little at a time.  Rather than working on a Koran text as such, work on the early witnesses to the text, the physical remains, the unvocalised scripts, and find out what we actually have from that period and what it says.

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Really Important: tell the British Library which manuscripts you want to see online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Juan Garces is inviting suggestions for manuscripts to be digitised here.

The obvious answer to this question is: all of them! We all want access to free digital resources, but creating them is tempered by a series of practical considerations. How can we best deliver digitised manuscripts to your desktops? One answer is to secure funding for independent digitisation projects with achievable goals. Such a series of projects has to be placed squarely within a vision and strategy. At the start of each one we have to ask ourselves: which manuscripts should we digitise next? …

It is, however, crucial that we also engage you. Here’s how. Contact me to answer the following question: which particular Greek manuscripts held by the British Library would you like to see digitised and why? I cannot promise that your favourite manuscript will be in the next phase, but I can assure you that your feedback will inform our decision.

Basically Juan has to go out and bid for money.  So if you have an idea for some manageable-size “project” that would attract funding easily, tell him.  If you have a bunch of manuscripts in mind, tell him.

I notice that the Stavros Niarchus Foundation is funding the first tranche.  We have, perhaps, overlooked the “wealthy Greek shipowner” angle on all this.  The manuscripts — the physical books — are the remains of Greek culture as it was in the middle ages, and record that culture from still earlier stages.  Why shouldn’t this Greek culture be online?

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Palimpsest ms image of Severus of Antioch

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Over at Juan Garces blog, there are a couple of images of a page from a Syriac treatise by Severus of Antioch, Contra impium grammaticum, (=Against the impious John the Grammarian).  The treatise was composed in the early 6th century, and the argument forms part of the political arguments taking place in the Byzantine empire in the guise of religious disagreements.

The image is very nice, and shows a clear and readable Serto hand.  What is particularly interesting is that the parchment was itself second-hand when the ms. was written.  The previous text had been washed off, but not very well, and it is clearly visible in the areas not written over.  The text was a Greek bible in uncial.  Juan also shows a UV image which brings up the under-text very clearly.  The manuscript itself is one of those acquired in the 1840’s from the abbey of Deir el-Suryani (=monastery of the Syrians) in the Nitrian desert in Egypt.

I don’t know whether this work by Severus has ever been translated into English.  It would certainly be nice to have the whole ms. online, tho.

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Greek mss at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have been hunting around to see which Greek manuscripts at the British Library it might be interesting to get digitised.  It is remarkably difficult to find out.

The BL catalogue is online; but it is largely useless because there is no way to restrict results to Greek mss only.  So a search for Chrysostom — every collection must have these — is pointless, because most of the results will be Latin manuscripts of translations.  This is really quite frustrating.  So far I have managed to find only a handful of mss which I might put forward.

One possible source of information would be Henri Omont, ‘Notes sur les manuscrits grecs du British Museum’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 45 (1884), 314-50, 584 (p. 335).  This is online here.  Maybe this will list some interesting volumes, if it ever downloads!

UPDATE: Indeed it does.  After a survey of the main collections, it lists the interesting previous owners and what they owned.  I need to digest this down into a list of suggestions.

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Never mind the New Testament – digital mss at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

All the NT people are getting excited about Juan Garces’ plan to digitise 250 manuscripts at the British Library.  But of course the rest of us have views too!  I have written today to Dr Garces asking for some classical manuscripts to be done as well.

Some time ago I went through the introductions of a large number of Loeb editions in order to get an overview of what mss of what existed where.  Since the list of mss in a Loeb is always limited, anything mentioned is probably important.

Here’s what I found that was held by the BL — 9 manuscripts in all:

  • Letters of Alciphron — British Library Harleianus 5566.  Paper. ff.141r-167v.
  • Apollodorus — British Library Harleian 5732.  (16th c).
  • Babrius, Fables — British Library, Additional 22087 (codex Athous).  Contains fables 1-122.  Corrections in the margins and above the lines by Demetrius Triclinus. 10th c.
  • Herodotus – British Library 1109 (Greek papyri in the British Museum III p.57 = Milne, Catalogue of the literary papyri in the British Museum no. 102) 1/2nd century
  • Homer, Iliad, — British Library Burney 86, 11th c.
  • Isaeus — British Library, Burneianus 95 (=codex Crippsianus).  This is a vellum manuscript containing Andocides, Isaeus, Deinarchus, Antiphon, Lycurgus, Gorgias, Alcidamas, Lesbonax and Herodes.  This was first discovered in the library of the monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos.  It was then acquired by the Phanariot Greek Prince, Alexander Bano Hantzerli of Constantinople.  John Marten Cripps bought it from him at the start of the 19th century.  It then passed into the collection of Dr. Charles Burney, and thence with the rest of that collection by purchase into the British Museum in 1827.  It also has two corrector’s hands.  The first is the original scribe correcting his work against the exemplar, with the occasional conjecture.  The second may or may not involve the use of a different ms.  13th c.
  •  Isaeus — British Library, Burney 96. 15th c.
  • Thucydides — British Library 11727. Parchment  11th c.
This taken from my notes about the traditions here:
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Digitised mss at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

From Evangelical Textual Criticism I learn that the excellent Juan Garcés is revolutionising things at the British Library.   He’s leading a project to digitise 250 Greek manuscripts and place them online so scholars can consult the things.  He has obtained funding from the Stavros Niarchos foundation.

He’s also created the Digitised Manuscripts blog to report on progress.

It seems that the British Library described the project in their “Annual Reports and Accounts 2008/2009”:

Digitisation of Greek manuscripts

We are very grateful to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for making it possible for us to undertake a project to digitise 250 of our Greek manuscripts to make them fully accessible to researchers around the world through the internet. We will also create catalogue records for each item and create a website that will enable researchers to search using key words and interactive technology that will allow them to upload notes and collaborate with other researchers virtually. We aim to launch the website in summer 2010. We are continuing to fundraise to enable us to add the remaining Greek manuscripts and papyri to the site in the longer term.

Let us hope that they understand that we will all want downloadable PDF’s.

It might be interesting to think what mss we would like scanned.  I know that New Testament people will be lobbying; but classics and patristics mss would be nice.  I realise that I don’t actually know what Greek mss at the BL I would like to see.

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Self-service photographing of manuscripts at Leiden

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I am rather excited to learn that Leiden university library apparently allows readers to photograph manuscripts themselves!  Details here:

http://www.library.leiden.edu/collections/special/practical/reproduction-special-collections.html

They don’t allow flash (understandably) or tripods (less so).  But this is great news!

If anyone would like to try this out and see how it works, I think we would all be interested.

The reproductions department doesn’t seem to have heard of supplying microfilms in PDF form, tho. I’m querying that with them.

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Manuscripts of Eusebius’ “Vita Constantini”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A researcher from a Canadian film company wrote to me, saying they were doing a documentary on Constantine, would be in Rome and was there an original or an old copy of this work there, because they wanted to film it.  I went and looked in the GCS 7 volume online, and I thought I’d share the results.

The Mss of the “Vita Constantini” and the “Oratio ad sanctum coetum” are

1)

  • V. — Vaticanus 149 [XI S.].
  • R. — Vaticanus 396 [XVI S.].

IIa) 

  • J. — Moscoviensis 50 [XI S.].

IIb):

  • M. — Marcianus 339 [XII vel XIII S.].
  • B.  — Parisinus 1432 [XIII S.].
  • A.  — Parisinus 1437 [XIII vel XIV S.].

IIc):

  • E. — Parisinus 1439 [XVI S.].
  • D.  — Parisinus 414 [XVI S.].
  • Sct. — Scorialensis T-I-7 [XVI S.].

IId)

  • N. — Marcianus 340 [XIII S.).
  • P. — Palatinus 268 [XIII S.].
  • G. — Parisinus 1438 [XV S.].
  • Sav. — (only Vita books I-III) Savilianus [XV S.] = N + M.
  • Scr. — Scorialensis R-II-4 [XVI S.] = C + ?

Mss. called “Parisinus” will be in the French National Library. Marcianus is a library in Venice.  Palatinus is a sub-collection in the Vatican library (books originally from the library in Heidelberg of the Rhineland Palatinate, and transferred to the Vatican as part of the settlement of the 30 Years War).  Scorialensis is the Escorial in Madrid.  Cantabrigiensis = Cambridge University Library in the UK. Ottobonianus is another Vatican sub-collection (made up of the books once owned by the long-dead Cardinal Ottoboni).

It’s not a bad collection, for an ancient Greek text.  Fourteen mss, one of the 11th century.  Apparently they all have gaps in, tho!

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The lost manuscripts of Seert – a clue?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The revival of interest in Syriac before the first world war led to the establishment of the American mission at Urmia, and also transformed some of the clergy in that region of the Turkish Empire into scholars, publishing previously unknown material in western journals.  Foremost among these was Addai Scher, Archbishop of Seert.  He gathered a considerable collection of manuscripts, a few of which he sent to Paris. 

Among his discoveries was a jewel; a Syriac translation of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s De incarnatione.  This work had been lost, but was a critical factor in the disputes in the 5th century.

Everyone knows of the massacres of Armenians by the Turkish forces — mostly Kurds — during WW1.  Less well known are the similar massacres of Syriac-speaking Christians during the same period of 1915.  Addai Scher was dragged out and shot by Turkish irregulars, and most of his library was lost, including De incarnatione.

But I have been reading an article by William Macomber SJ, in which an interesting footnote appears.  It seems that a servant of Dr Scher has told various people that a number of books were buried in cases and leather bags in the courtyard.  Travellers in 1966 confirmed that the courtyard level had risen quite a bit.  The episcopal residence had been turned into a school.

I wonder if anyone has gone and investigated? 

Here are Macomber’s words:

Two apparently independent witnesses, one at ‘Aqra that was interviewed by Jules Leroy, Les manuscrits syriaques a peintures conserves dans les bibliotheques d’Europe et d’Orient (Institut Francais d’Archeologie de Beyrouth, Bibliotheque Archeologique et Historique, t. LXXVII), Paris 1964, p. 212 n. 3, and the other in Beirut, a former servant of Archbishop Scher, whose witness has been related to me by friends in Baghdad, have reported that at least some of the manuscripts of this library were buried in wooden cases and leathern sacks in the courtyard of the residence. The servant indicates the precise location of the burial, before the door of the residence that led into the courtyard. Travellers to Seert (Siirt) report that the Turkish government has turned the residence into a school for children and that the original level of the eourtyard has been considerably raised. Even if the story of the servant be true, therefore, it is quite possible that the hiding place of the manuscripts has already been discovered. Nonetheless, the importance of the coUection was so great, containing, as it did, the only known copy of the De incarnatione of Theodore of Mopsuestia, that it would seem a great pity if steps were not taken to obtain permission from the Turkish authoritiers to excavate the site. The sight of the work of excavation, moreover, might persuade citizens of Seert who may happen to have acquired some of the manuscripts to declare themselves, at least secretly, in the hope of making a profitable sale.

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