Census and Study

This heuristic activity of detecting and cataloguing palimpsests is at the basis of the whole project. It will result in a systematic checklist of all Greek palimpsests found in the numerous ancient European libraries and also in the relevant Near Eastern and North American libraries. The results will be presented in a global checklist. A thorough census of those palimpsests chosen for select digitisations, approximately one tenth of the total number, will result in more detailed descriptions of these manuscripts. Various further manuscripts will receive similar attention by traditional methods. For the systemisation of this data and its transfer to the project's digital archive at Florence, the software MANUS is being provided by the Direzione Generale per I beni librari e gli istituti culturali of the Italian Ministry of Culture. It has been customised to allow for the special needs of palimpsests descriptions. Study The writing in the palimpsests studied will be reviewed and classified according to its content, to its dating, to its paleographical and codicological aspects, and to the recension of the transmitted texts. The help of specialised scholars will be enlisted on a case to case basis. The census will provide a basis for further scientific studies. These will deal with the socio-cultural, economic and literary backgrounds for the sacrifice of older texts and with the geographical centres and times of its occurrence. Book makers' techniques and methods for palimpsestation have to be determined empirically as well. All these aspects also require the study of the historical sources of course. This will make an important area of historical recycling accesible to both specialists in any of these numerous fields and to the interested public at large.

Digitisation, elaboration, archiving

Approximately one tenth of the total number of extant Greek palimpsests will be chosen for digitisation. Project partners are using several systems for the digitisation according to the specific situation of a manuscript or library. Besides regular commercial grade digitisation systems combined with specific filters, two special systems for the multispectral digitisation of manuscripts (one produced by an Italian, one by a Greek company), which have been acquired by some of the partners, are used as well. Where necessary, specialised companies may be asked to provide digitisation using yet more sophisticated equipment on a per-case basis. Depending on the degree of readability of the palimpsests and on the imaging technology used in each particular case, image files are either elaborated using standard image manipulation software (with preliminary elaboration used on-site to adjust the digitisation process where necessary) or processed with specific tools. In the cases where the services of specialised companies are used, these handle the entire process from digitisation to the elaborated result. After elaboration, the results of the digitisation are archived. A central repository is being created by the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence. Coupled to a searchable database comprising census data for all manuscripts considered and extended data for those manuscripts worked upon, reduced-scale elaborated images will be made available on the internet. Project partners are also able to access full resolution images.

Education and training

Modern information technology has become a matter of course for the present and new generation of scholars, scientists and students. Yet relatively little training is available to put that technology to its optimal use in specific areas of application where the Humanities are concerned. We aim to contribute to ameliorating this situation by analysing, explaining and presenting the technologies used in this project. Besides, our events also provide basic learning opportunities in the areas of paleography, codicology and history of the book. Students from the undergraduate level to postgraduate in the various fields involved, scholars in a university context and professionals in the library and archive areas will be given the option of gaining experience with regard to the methodology developed and to the technical solutions reached. Several workshops provide practical training with varying focuses in these areas, whereas specific sections on the use of technology in some of the conferences offer scholars and technicians the option for scientific discussion of the applications and results.

Dissemination and publication

Constant contacts and exchange among the partners result in reports of the insights, finds and discoveries from all project activities to be disseminated to the scholarly and culturally interested public. Scientific publications and project conferences aimed at specialists on the one hand and general dissemination in the media, on CD-ROM, and through a final exhibition on the other sustain these efforts. A bulletin Palimpsestos containing general information as well as short scientific reports will be published annually in printed and electronic form. The results of the conference at Bratislava (June 2002) have already been published and offer information on the palimpsest and other manuscript and early print holdings in Eastern European libraries and archives: Rinascimento virtuale – Digitale Palimpsestforschung. Perspektiven in den Beitrittsländern, Bratislava 2002. This booklet is available from us upon request. Finally, the exhibition which concludes the project (Sept./Oct. 2004) will present both results and methods used to a more general public. Several instances of the exhibition will open in Athens, London, Rome, Saragossa and Vienna, comprising an identical general part adapted to local requirements and supplemented with original palimpsest material of the respective libraries.