SCRIBAL CULTURE IN ITALY, 1450-1650
WORKSHOP 6: THE CATALOGUING OF MANUSCRIPTS
A Half-Day Workshop
The British Library
Friday 20 November 2009
What does manuscript cataloguing entail and why is it important? What are the challenges facing the themed cataloguing of manuscripts in particular collections? What are the benefits of themed cataloguing to scholarship? How can a catalogue account for subject-matter, author, scribe, and collector? What are the British Library’s holdings and how can they best be catalogued? Building on recent interest in manuscript as a means of communication in early modern France, Great Britain and Spain, this workshop is the last in a series events that have been planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy. We welcome participation by all those interested in cultural and political history in the history of the book, by historians, art historians, curators, archivists and palaeographers.
Programme [To gain access please go to the Information Desk in the British Library Front Hall, from where you will be escorted to the Panizzi Room]
14.00 British Library, Panizzi Room – Introduction
Chair: Professor Robert Black (Leeds)
14.05 Giliola Barbero (Università Cattolica, Milan): Shared cataloguing as an aid to the study of early modern manuscripts
14.35 Rachel Stockdale (British Library): Catalogue integration at the British Library
15.05 Dr Filippo de Vivo (Birkbeck College, London): Why catalogue political manuscripts
15.35 Laura Nuvoloni (Cambridge University Library): The Italian political manuscripts at the British Library; presentation of sample manuscripts
16.00 Discussion
Papers’ abstracts are available below.
The workshop is open to all and there is a limited number of post-graduate bursaries to cover all or part of the cost of attending. There is no charge for attendance but space is limited. To reserve a place or for more information, please contact Filippo de Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (b.f.richardson@leeds.ac.uk).
ABSTRACTS
Giliola Barbero: Shared cataloguing as an aid to the study of early modern manuscripts
Reading modern historical syntheses is fascinating, of course, but sometimes such works cannot consider interesting portions of facts, persons and their real thought because many early modern manuscripts - which could illustrate them - have not yet been studied, or even discovered. The first aim of this paper is to show how new texts have been discovered by cataloguing manuscripts. Secondly, we will see how identifications and attributions can change by describing and comparing differents witnesses of the same work through the sharing of catalogues across collections, and how old collections can be reconstructed by studying ownership. To prove these points the discussion will consider Federico Borromeo's manuscript devoted to telescope and its application, and political manuscripts held in Italian libraries. The paper will also show how the italian ministerial catalogue ManusOnLine accounts for author, scribe, and collector, and the reason why it does not yet consider subject-matter.
Rachel Stockdale: Catalogue integration at the British Library
A report on the major project currently in progress at the British Library to introduce a new standards-based cataloguing system for manuscripts, integrating existing catalogues covering different parts of the collections into a single unified whole, and enhancing access to information for all our users. The potential for creating detailed descriptions of Italian political manuscripts, scattered throughout the collections and hitherto only briefly recorded, will be outlined.
Filippo de Vivo: Why catalogue political manuscripts
As several recent studies have shown, certain important features gave manuscript an advantage over print in the circulation of political texts in Italy and elsewhere well into the seventeenth century. But what makes a political manuscript ‘political’? And what were the functions, limits, and uses of manuscripts in the context of multifaceted political communication? The difficulty in answering these questions is that the discovery and identification of political manuscripts is often the result of luck, and only with great difficulties does it enable scholars to gain a sense of the entire activity of scribal reproduction and of the wider political culture involved. By contrast, the cataloguing of large collections is an invaluable help in this direction. This paper will discuss some recent catalogues and make a case for more research in this direction.
Laura Nuvoloni: The Italian political manuscripts at the British Library
The British Library holdings of Italian manuscripts are internationally renowned and probably are the most extensive outside Italy and the Vatican. Within these holdings the presence of manuscripts containing texts and documents relating to Italian history and politics is significant. The paper will report briefly on the results of a recent survey of such material in view of a possible future cataloguing project. It will also illustrate the benefits of cataloguing projects in general by showing some of the 'hidden' manuscripts from the Guilford collection that have been discovered in the course of a similar cataloguing project and are now widely available to library readers and remote users alike through the library on-line catalogue. The paper will include a presentation of some of these manuscripts.