Bibliotheca Morimundi. Virtual reconstitution of the manuscript library of the abbey of Morimondo

Presentation of the plan of search and
its object
The aim of the project Bibliotheca Morimundi is to recompose
in a database of digital images the written heritage that
belonged to the library of the Cistercian abbey of Morimondo
(Milan), dispersed after the suppression of the monastery in
1796. The collection was composed by medieval manuscripts,
renaissance incunabula and diplomas. According to medieval
catalogues and to ex libris about 80 extant manuscripts
(dating from the middle of 12th century to the 15th century),
3 incunabula and hundred of medieval and post-medieval
diplomas belonged to the abbey of Morimondo. Morimondo
manuscripts are generally characterised by a remarkable
thematic range and relevant artistic preciousness: Bibles and
liturgical books decorated with fi ne miniatures, books with
musical notation (among which is the most ancient known
antiphonary of Cistercian order), patristic texts that show an
interest for authors from the Eastern Christianity, and fi nally
juridical, scientifi c and theological codices that are witnesses
of the participation of the Morimondo monastery to the
European renewal of the twelfth and thirteenth century. Some
of the diplomas are of high historical importance, as papal and
imperial documents, and are now conserved at State Archive
of Milan.
Since manuscripts from Morimondo are now conserved in ca.
twenty libraries dislocated all around the world, a comparative
and detailed study of all these sources has not yet been possible:
the digital resource will allow a global study of this collection,
based on the comparison of handwritten texts (manuscripts
and diplomas) produced in the very same scriptorium. On the
basis of these features the Bibliotheca Morimundi project will
be a digital library that differentiates itself from other digital
libraries, which build on an extant collection (see the Sankt
Gallen or Köln projects: http://www.cesg.unifr.ch/it/index.htm;
http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de/). In the case of Morimondo the
digital library takes the place of the no more extant library.
The virtual recollection of the manuscripts once belonged
to Morimondo abbey in a digital database should allow a
systematic study of the history and the culture developed in
this monastic site, a singular oasis in the Ticino’s valley, at 40 km
from Milan, where religious life and textual production where
cultivated together. Throughout the possibility to compare
these manuscripts, of the majority of which were written in
Morimondo, scholars would have the opportunity to detect
palaeographical, codicological, liturgical and textual features of
the monastic culture in Morimondo.
The realization of the database Bibliotheca Morimundi not only
will reconstitute the ancient unity of the library of the abbey,
but is also intended as an interactive instrument of research,
by providing a wealth of resources including digital images of
the manuscripts, incunabula and diplomas ,texts transcriptions,
indices, and bibliography, organized as an hypertext structure
capable to facilitate the research and to integrate progressing
results and dissemination of the studies (such as printed papers
but also notes made by users).
The Database
The database is accessed as a web site structure in html
language. The consultation of the digitals images, due to
copyright reasons, is allowed – at least in this fi rst phase of the
realization – only off line, on local computer terminals hosted
by the institutions which support the project (Fondazione
Franceschini of Florence and Fondazione Rusca of Como).
Catalogues and textual resources will be published on line.
When a library owner of manuscripts from Morimondo didn’t
allow a digital reproduction a digitized microfi lm is inserted
in the database. The pictures, provided as 8 bit colour JPEG
at the resolution of 300 dpi, are readable in PDF format. The
metadata will be codifi ed in XML language following the MAG
standard, http://www.iccu.sbn.it/genera.jsp?id=267, which
scheme consent to mark either the digital images or the OCR
files of secondary bibliography and other textual resources
(such transcription, notes progressively added by users etc.).
Status of the work
At present about 30 of 78 mss. have been photographed.
The most important collection of Morimondo manuscripts
(summing 18 mss.), owned by the Biblioteca del Seminario
Vescovile di Como, has been fully photographed in digital
colour pictures and constituted the current base of the archive
of digital photos. Others single codices kept in monastic
library (such as Tamié in France or Horsham in England) have
been digitally photographed. Digital images amount, up to now,
at the number of 7000 ca. Others main collections, such as
those kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris or in the British Library in London, have been acquired as b/w
microfi lms and converted in digital images with a slide scanner.
In a draft version the database is already consultable at the
library of the Fondazione Rusca of Como, where also the mss.
of the Biblioteca del Seminario are conserved. Some scholars
have already begun their studies by using the data (images and
texts) and metadata (codicological data about the manuscript
source, digital image informations) already inserted in the
database.
Developments of the search
A fundamental direction of development of the «Bibliotheca
Morimundi» project will the multidisciplinary integration
of differentiated scientifi c competences in the study of the
sources included in the database. Already a team of scholars
with academic roles has been contacted or involved in
the project. The integration of digitals images and textual
instruments that will progressively facilitates the study of
the Morimondo primary sources will also constitute a fi eld
of application for developers of computational resources in
the humanities. Another development will be the incentive
toward the interrelation of several type of cultural institutional
needs, such the needs of research and the needs of historical
preservation and divulgation. The project has already made
progress on the basis of such a cooperation between an
institution involved in active scientifi c research (Fondazione
Franceschini – SISMEL, one of the most active institution,
at international level, in the study of the Middle Ages) and a
library (Biblioteca del Seminario vescovile di Como, keeper
of 18 manuscripts from Morimondo). Other conventions for
scientifi c cooperation between institutions are currently in
progress.
Bibliography
Correlated Projects
Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis (CEEC)
http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de/
Codices Electronici Sangallenses (CESG) – Virtual Library
http://www.cesg.unifr.ch/it/index.htm
Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
http://www.diamm.ac.uk/
Manuscriptorium
http://www.manuscriptorium.com/Site/ENG/default_eng.asp
Monasterium Projekt (MOM)
www.monasterium.net
Papers
Michele Ansani, Edizione digitale di fonti diplomatiche:
esperienze, modelli testuali, priorità, «Reti medievali VII- 2006
/ 2 - luglio-dicembre», http://www.dssg.unifi .it/_RM/rivista/
forum/Ansani.htm
Arianna Ciula, L’applicazione del software SPI ai codici senesi
in Poesía medieval (Historia literaria y transmisión de textos)
cur. Vitalino Valcárcel Martínez - Carlos Pérez González,
Burgos, Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua
2005 pp. 483 (Beltenebros 12), pp.?305-25
Emiliano Degl’Innocenti, Il Progetto di digitalizzazione
dei Plutei della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenze
«DigItalia». Rivista del digitale nei beni culturali, Roma =
DigItalia 1 (2007), pp. 103-14
Digitalisierte Vergangenheit. Datenbanken und Multimedia
von der Antike bis zur frühen Neuzeit, cur. Christoph Schäfer
- Florian Krüpe, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 2005 pp. XI-147
tavv. (Philippika. Marburger altertumskundliche Abhandlungen
5)