Digitization and Cataloguing of post-medieval Latin manuscripts in the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB)

• Applicant: Katrin Stump, since 6/2022
• Subject Area: Early Modern History ; Greek and Latin Philology ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 492874736

The Saxon State and University Library Dresden collection of post-medieval Latin manuscripts comprises about 1,356 items. Most of them date from the 17th and 18th centuries; but there is also a sizeable number of manuscripts dating from the 16th century, with a comparably small number of items from the 19th century. On the one hand, their geographical provenience can be tracedback to the territories in Central Europe, known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. On the other hand, Quite a large number of manuscriptsseems to originate from France and Italy. The material focuses on a variety of specific issues and wide-ranged topics. The texts in the corpus may refer to theology, but also to classical antiquity and to biographical and historical contexts, including genealogy and heraldic matters; they offer accounts on numismatics, and they provide treatises on philosophy, law, medicine, natural history, astrology, alchemy and other subjects, not least mathematics.The current catalogue has not kept pace with the changing needs of library users and researchers. Consequently, scholars who like to study the Dresden Codices Latini still have to rely on a printed source that was begun at the end of the 19th century. A remarkable feat of librarianship at the time, it has become rather a hindrance than a help for modern scientific research. the humanities and the social sciences.. The aim of the project is therefore to catalogue and to digitize the post-medieval Latin manuscripts kept in the Saxon State and University Library Dresden, and to make the manuscripts more accessible in this way..The working of the new catalogue should progress in two steps. As presented in this application, the first phase consists of cataloguing the whole corpus of post-medieval Latin manuscripts according to an established method, which gives a short but adequate description of every item. This will give researchers, easy access to the manuscript data within a well-defined and short time-frame. In a second step, manuscripts that are judged to be especially important and relevant for research will be analysed and described in a deeper way. During the cataloguing process, the manuscripts will be digitized. Using advanced technology and drawing on the latest research findings from disciplines such as palaeography and codicology, the newly created archive will give scholars and students the tools they need to work collaboratively on these source materials, and will open up new avenues to the study of those manuscripts and the historical and cultural context of their production.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Achim Bonte, until 5/2022