The digitization of the incunabula of monastic libraries in Italy: the Polonsky Foundation's project with BNCR and CERL
The digitization and enhanced cataloguing of the 206 incunabula held at the Monastery of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco have been conceived as part of a pilot module-based project focused mainly on the small collections found in public or ecclesiastical institutions or belonging to private individuals, which frequently contain rare material and are often difficult to access. In terms of issues of security, conservation and use, such collections often require special attention.
The Polonsky Foundation - IGI Digitisation Project - Subiaco, Incunabula of Santa Scolastica is coordinated and directed by the National Central Library in Rome ('Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma’ or BNCR), in partnership with the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), and with the Benedictine monastery of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco. It is generously funded by the Polonsky Foundation, as part of their programme to support the preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage and free access to knowledge.
The project took as its starting point the eleven libraries which belong to the so-called category of ‘Monumenti Nazionali’ which comprises the suppressed abbeys and monasteries taken over by the Italian State at the end of the 19th century following the laws of expropriation and now overseen by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MiBACT).
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ArchiveNotes of medical interest on an incunable purchased from the bookseller and printer Giustiniano da Rubiera.
In the library of the monastery of Santa Scolastica there is a copy of the Quaestiones super Aphorismos Hippocratis et libros Tegni Galeni by the Tuscan physician Giovanni Sermoneta (c. 1390-1450). The incunable in Subiaco is one of forty-eight surviving copies of the edition published in Venice on 31 March 1498 by Bonetto Locatelli and Ottaviano Scotti (ISTC is00475000).
Fifteenth-century illustrated edition in the library of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco – Part IV
Among the illustrated incunable editions in Subiaco there are five scientific and philosophical works. There are two scientific texts: the book at shelfmark V.A.15 is a copy of the edition of the De Meteoris by Albertus Magnus (c. 1200-1280), printed probably in Venice by the Dutch printer Reynaldus de Novimagio in May 1488 while the volume at shelfmark XVII.A.5 is a copy of the astronomical tables known as the ‘Alfonsine tables’ after Alfonso X of Castile (1221-1284).
Fifteenth-century illustrated editions in the library of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco – Part III
Among the illustrated incunable editions in the library of Santa Scolastica there are two copies of two different editions of the Fasciculus Temporum, a compendium of ecclesiastical and secular history compiled by the Carthusian monk Werner Rolewinck
Fifteenth-century illustrated editions in the library of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco – Part II, 2
Among the noteworthy illustrated devotional books found at Subiaco are two collections of the Sermones de tempore et de sanctis of St Bernard of Clairvaux and one of the Meditationes vitae Christi.
Fifteenth-century illustrated editions in the library of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco - Part II, 1
There are several illustrated incunable editions of devotional texts in the library of the monastery of Santa Scolastica, now a national monument. They include one edition of the Bible, printed in Venice in 1498 by Simone Bevilacqua, the Sermones of Bernard of Clairvaux and of St Vincent Ferrer, an edition of the Meditazioni di Cristo and one of the Rivelazioni of St Bridget.
Fifteenth-century illustrated books in the library of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco - Part I
At the outset printed books, just like manuscripts, continued to be decorated manually by illuminators and other artists. Indeed, often the same illuminators and artists and the same workshops worked on both printed books and manuscripts.