Pinned
We are frequently asked why we don’t wear gloves in our manuscript videos. In today's #ManuscriptBasics, curator Dot Porter @leoba will do her best to explain. If you have a question, ask, and maybe we'll make a video to answer!
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Palimpsest Discovered in Recently Acquired Roll
Roll before and after multispectral imaging. The poem is visible under the stain in the middle of the photo.
Exciting new discoveries are always possible in the world of manuscript studies, but even we were unprepared for what emerged from Penn’s latest acquisition. Recently, the Library purchased a fragment of a Genealogy of Christ roll—an important addition to our collection. “But upon close examination,” explains SIMS Curator of Digital Humanities Dot Porter, “it became clear that the parchment had been reused; an earlier text was erased, and new text was written over. It’s a palimpsest.”
Enter Multispectral Imaging, conducted by Dr. Helen Davies, assistant professor of the digital humanities in the English department and co-director of the Center for the Digital Humanities at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
Helen Davies imaging the roll
Dr. Davies described the process: “I imaged the roll using multispectral imaging, and as the data was processed, words began to emerge.”
And not just any words.
Amey Hutchens, University of Pennsylvania Libraries Manuscripts Cataloger, has confirmed that the undertext is an entirely unknown poem, strikingly similar in style and theme to the works of the enigmatic classical lyricist Ricardus Astleaus.
“Could this be a lost work of the poet himself?” Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts Nicholas Herman voices the question we’re all asking. “The implications are staggering.”
We welcome input from the scholarly community, who can read a transcription of the poem “Tete Numquam Relinquam” here.
Happy April 2! Just to confirm, yesterday's post was an April Fool's post - a Ricardus Roll, if you will. Thank you for playing along!
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wdym the british library is going to auction off 20% of their manuscripts to private collectors in order to make up for their losses from the 2023 cyber attack?? HELLO???
Palimpsest Discovered in Recently Acquired Roll
Roll before and after multispectral imaging. The poem is visible under the stain in the middle of the photo.
Exciting new discoveries are always possible in the world of manuscript studies, but even we were unprepared for what emerged from Penn’s latest acquisition. Recently, the Library purchased a fragment of a Genealogy of Christ roll—an important addition to our collection. “But upon close examination,” explains SIMS Curator of Digital Humanities Dot Porter, “it became clear that the parchment had been reused; an earlier text was erased, and new text was written over. It’s a palimpsest.”
Enter Multispectral Imaging, conducted by Dr. Helen Davies, assistant professor of the digital humanities in the English department and co-director of the Center for the Digital Humanities at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
Helen Davies imaging the roll
Dr. Davies described the process: “I imaged the roll using multispectral imaging, and as the data was processed, words began to emerge.”
And not just any words.
Amey Hutchens, University of Pennsylvania Libraries Manuscripts Cataloger, has confirmed that the undertext is an entirely unknown poem, strikingly similar in style and theme to the works of the enigmatic classical lyricist Ricardus Astleaus.
“Could this be a lost work of the poet himself?” Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts Nicholas Herman voices the question we’re all asking. “The implications are staggering.”
We welcome input from the scholarly community, who can read a transcription of the poem “Tete Numquam Relinquam” here.
For #CoffeeWithACodex on April 3, Curator Dot Porter will bring out LJS 37 and LJS 460, an incomplete abridgment in Arabic of Euclid's Elements and a separate quire from the same manuscript, collected at different times. They were written on paper in A.H. 502 (1108-1109).
Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Register here:
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One of our most frequently asked questions (sometimes asked with varying levels of politeness online) is "Should you be wearing gloves?" We made a video to discuss why for most things, the answer is no. You can see the full video, and some more examples of when we do and don't use gloves to handle our collections on YouTube.
Also a shoutout to our @upennmanuscripts colleagues and their excellent educational work on this subject.
another addition to the #NoGloves genre of posts from special collections libraries!
For #CoffeeWithACodex on March 20, Curator Dot Porter will bring out Ms. Codex 742, a collection of anonymous sermons for Sundays from the Second Sunday of Advent through the 25th Sunday after Pentecost. It was written in France in the 13th century.
Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Register here:
A wide-eyed bird on p. 67 of Ms. Codex 3, three volumes of paintings or hand-colored sketches depicting mainly insects, fish and other marine life, birds and flowers. We don't know much about these books except that they were made in Japan, probably in the 19th century. If you know more, let us know!
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The camel has a single hump; The dromedary , two; Or else the other way around. I'm never sure. Are you?
-Ogden Nash
A camel - dromedary? - hangs out in the bottom margin of f. 303r, Ms. Codex 724, a 13th century illuminated Bible #DrolleryDonnerstag
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some of you guys take camel identification very seriously! (affectionate)
This week's #RainsfordDay book is this alchemical compendium, written in English in the late 18th century, which includes instructions for alchemical processes such as transmutation, sublimation, and multiplication, with practical applications such as embalming bodies. It was copied by Charles Rainsford himself. Rainsford was an 18th century British army officer, fellow of the Royal Society, and alchemist, who collected (and copied) books about his interests. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1690)
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For #CoffeeWithACodex on March 20, Curator Dot Porter will bring out Ms. Roll 2062, three fragments from an 11th-century manuscript roll of the Liturgy of Saint Basil in the Byzantine Rite. The roll has been located to Berat, Albania, and was written between 1040 and 1099.
Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Register here:
Genealogy works well in a roll form, which just keeps going and going. It's not so good in a codex, where the diagrams start and stop at the edges of the page, but we admire the scribe of LJS 266 (a 15th century French copy of a Biblical genealogy from Adam to Jesus and the apostles), who really did try their best.
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For #MiniatureMonday this week we have this tiny book of hours, made in northern Italy in the second half of the 15th century. Illuminated leaves at the beginning of the Hours of the Virgin, the Penitential Psalms, and the Office of the Dead, probably with miniatures, were removed and replaced with parchment leaves with text only, possibly in the 19th century. If you watch carefully you'll see one of them in this video! (UPenn Ms. Codex 2136)
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