Virtual Renaissance Network: History

Following the engagements undertaken during the Digitale Palimpsestforschung Forum in Hamburg with the draft of the preliminary Agreement, the members of the European Rinascimento virtuale network met in Rome on March 2nd and 3rd 2001 for the 1st International Studies Seminar, titled Manuscripts and technologic innovations: new methods for the protection and enhancement of a cultural heritage. In a workshop, reserved for the institutions that signed the preliminary Agreement,  the project lines outlined in November has been updated and has been  defined the means of developing and organizing the network around a common political and cultural outlook, in a more detailed fashion, for each country to carry out its own clear-cut but absolutely cooperative role. The presentation of the network and its programme and goals to the public has followed.

The exchange of experiences and the common promotion and divulgation of the results forthcoming from the activities of the single signatory institutions will  benefit each of the countries involved in the project, and will favour the awareness of common cultural bonds and interests, which are deeply rooted in the history ot European culture, among a wider public.

The Rinascimento virtuale structure itself makes it natural to operate within such a common prospect. The network's past practice is made up of strong common scientific and didactic interests, developing over years of active cooperation and exchanging experiences both in research and in didactics. For almost ten years, from 1991 to 1999, the Hamburg University Graduiertenkolleg Griechische Textueberlieferung, directed by the network leader Dieter Harlfiger, has permitted the development of several research projects for young European scholars , (Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, Belgians), but also from extra-European Community countries that are firmly linked to European culture and history (Latvia, Bulgaria, Rumania) in the fields of codicologv, literature and history of Greek and Byzantine studies. The result of such active European cooperation has found a concrete  outlet in publications, seminaries, conferences, and has helped to lay the foundations for one of the most enterprising Rinascimento virtuale projects, i.e. the census of Greek palimpsests, begun in Hamburg and now being developed in Cambridge by the Latvian scholar Natalie Tchernetska. Experience comparisons within the research upon Greek manuscripts underline the scientific work being carried out for years now by the members of the network belonging to the Universities of Hamburg, Berlin, Bologna, Louvain-la-Neuve, Saragossa, Thessalonika, Athens and Gottingen (the research group on History of Byzantine Law at the Max-Planck-Institut inFrankfurt is an offshoot of its Academy of Sciences).

The research project of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna intends to add lo the long years dedicated to a manuscript palimpsest from the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos, by pursuing scientifically groundedresults, made possible nowadays by the aid of the most innovative digital technology.

Rinascimento virtuale will be able to take advantage of important didactic and research experience, unique in its kind among the European libraries manuscript heritage. It started in Italy in 1998 with the introduction of the FEDRO Project, in the sphere of the national PARNASO programme for the enhancement of cultural heritage, with a specific interest towards manuscripts which are arduous to decipher kept in Italian libraries. particularly those from the Greek and Byzantine civilizations.

The annual training course in this ambit consists of 1232 hours dedicated to palimpsests and other sorts of damaged documents, during which the experience accumulated over the past ten years by Italian technology in digital multispectral filming of ancient manuscripts will he exploited for 75% of the time, while the remaining 25% foresees collaboration from Italian and foreign University professors, some of whom now adhere to the network.

The reasons behind tlie foundation of Rinascimento virtuale were born of the positive results achieved in Italy in 1998 thanks to its national technology, leading to the recovery of palimpsest sheets, otherwise illegible with traditional methods, from the Biblioteca del Monumento Nazionale of Grottaferrata (near Rome) and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Such results induced Austria and Greece, together with Italian institutions, to create the base for the first nucleus. which the present European network springs from.

It is evident that research centres and international teams analysing Greek manuscripts (such as the Repertorium der Handschriften des byzantinichen Rechts Rechts edited by the Frankfurt edited by Dieter Harlfinger, leader within the network in collaboration with the director of the Manuscripts Section of the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek. Ernst Gamillscheg); critical editions of large corpora (such as the opera omnia of Gregory of Nazianzius, a good 14 manuscripis guarding their text in the scriptio inferior, under research on the part of the Institut Orientaliste of Louvain-la-Neuve: the ancient collections of sayings by the Fathers of the desert, the object of a multiple-year research programme on the part of the Sciences Academy of Goettingen in team with Bologna University), and, in particular, Greek and Byzantine texts come down to us exclusively through palimpsest manuscripts (it is the case of a famous manuscripts in Vienna, of palimpsest fragments from the Biblioteca Laurenziana and that of Grottaferrata, of a palimpsest from the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos), have got together in the hope of bringing their projects closer to realisation by associating throughout Europe.

The application of this Italian technology has offered the scientific community worthwhile results over the past eight years in recovering illegible data on both vellum and paper documents and manuscripts which are damaged in several manners, making it possible to decipher texts of inestimable historical and cultural value, otherwise considered lost: still existent. but impenetrable for the human vision.

 

 

 

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Last update: Monday, May 30, 2005

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