Thierry Delcourt
Thierry Delcourt
The Roman de la Rose digital library and Europeana Regia: collaborative projects about medieval manuscripts
The National Library of France (BNF) developed for some years a new policy of cooperation to digitize manuscripts. Two samples shall show what we want to do with our French and foreign colleagues.
1. The Rose project. - The Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries (Baltimore) have been awarded two grants totaling $779,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a collaborative initiative with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) to digitize about 150 manuscripts from France, for Hopkins’ pioneering Roman de la Rose digital library. The French national library’s holdings of one of the most popular and widely reproduced vernacular works of the Middle Ages are not only the most extensive of any collection of Rose manuscripts, they are also the most varied in format, text, illumination, and decoration. In addition to the BNF manuscripts, another 40 publically-held Rose manuscripts in university and municipal libraries throughout France were also digitized in this project.
2. Europeana regia. A digital collaborative library of royal manuscripts in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.- Participant organisations: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Biblioteca Histórica-Universitat de València. Europeana Regia will create a European corpus of digitised manuscripts, testimonies of the circulation of texts and art in Europe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A selection of representative collections, today scattered in different countries, has been chosen to focus on several important moments of the political, cultural and artistic history of Europe: Bibliotheca Carolina, masterworks from the main abbeys and bishop schools of the Carolingian Empire, including Reichenau, Saint-Denis, Corbie, Reims, Saint-Amand, Freising, Wissembourg (425 manuscripts); the Library of King Charles V (170 manuscripts); the Library of the Aragon Kings of Naples (282 manuscripts). Budget : 3.400.000 €; duration: 30 months.
1. The Rose project. - The Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries (Baltimore) have been awarded two grants totaling $779,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a collaborative initiative with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) to digitize about 150 manuscripts from France, for Hopkins’ pioneering Roman de la Rose digital library. The French national library’s holdings of one of the most popular and widely reproduced vernacular works of the Middle Ages are not only the most extensive of any collection of Rose manuscripts, they are also the most varied in format, text, illumination, and decoration. In addition to the BNF manuscripts, another 40 publically-held Rose manuscripts in university and municipal libraries throughout France were also digitized in this project.
2. Europeana regia. A digital collaborative library of royal manuscripts in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.- Participant organisations: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Biblioteca Histórica-Universitat de València. Europeana Regia will create a European corpus of digitised manuscripts, testimonies of the circulation of texts and art in Europe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A selection of representative collections, today scattered in different countries, has been chosen to focus on several important moments of the political, cultural and artistic history of Europe: Bibliotheca Carolina, masterworks from the main abbeys and bishop schools of the Carolingian Empire, including Reichenau, Saint-Denis, Corbie, Reims, Saint-Amand, Freising, Wissembourg (425 manuscripts); the Library of King Charles V (170 manuscripts); the Library of the Aragon Kings of Naples (282 manuscripts). Budget : 3.400.000 €; duration: 30 months.
