Multispectral Recovery of a Fragment of Richard FitzRalph’s Summa de Questionibus Armenorum from University of Rochester, D.460 1000-03

Multispectral imaging—the process of obtaining image data from a range of both visible and invisible wavelengths—is a new frontier in medieval studies, raising the possibility of recovering damaged or palimpsested texts that have been illegible for centuries. In this paper we show the remarkable results of applying this technology to University of X, MS D.460 1000-003, a previously unidentified single-folio fragment that was gifted to the university in 1968. Formerly used as a limp vellum binding for a seventeenth-century volume, the text has become so worn that it is all but completely unreadable to the naked eye. The fragment has consequently received little scholarly attention prior to our investigation. Our team recovered nearly all of the lost text and identified the fragment as an excerpt from Richard FitzRalph’s Summa de Questionibus Armenorum. Although this text survives in 45 other manuscripts and fragments, our discovery is highly significant because the Rochester fragment is the only copy of any of FitzRalph’s works in a non-European collection. Moreover, the fragment, whose handwriting dates to no later than 1370, may be the oldest extant copy of the Summa by at least half a decade. We present the process of this discovery, our conclusions about the text, and the potential for multispectral imaging to unlock new information hidden in known but understudied fragments held in archival collections around the world

Measurements of imprints of spectacle frames in the Campione dei Beni, 1504 (Florence, Archivio del Capitolo di San Lorenzo, Ms. 2211)

This dataset was created in the context of the publication A. Janke, C. Colini, K.A. Huskin, S. Bosch, and I. Shevchuk, "A Second Look at Multispectral Data of Late Medieval Music Manuscripts" (in preparation). The research reexamines multispectral imaging (MSI) data of the San Lorenzo Palimpsest (Florence, Archivio del Capitolo di San Lorenzo Ms. 2211), namely the faint traces of spectacles present on fols 4v-5r, 15r, 33r, and 46v-47r (modern foliation). The dataset attempts to reconstruct and measure the spectacles from the imprints that MSI made visible

Multispectral Imaging Data of the Fragment Collection B 7 ("Welscher Gast") of Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg

Multispectral imaging data of selected areas of the fragment collection B 7 owned by Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg. The multispectral images were captured on the premises of the Universitätsbibliothek in Erlangen on the 11th and 12th of November 2019 by Ivan Shevchuk assisted by Sebastian Bosh and Jana Wolf, with the kind support of Christina Hofmann-Randall (director of the Erlangen manuscript department). The fragment collection, now preserved in a modern binding under the shelfmark B 7, assembles 32 leaves originating from different parts of a single manuscript carrying the text and illustrations of the "Welscher Gast" by Thomasin of Zerklaere, a 13th century didactic poem composed in Middle High German. This manuscript was written on parchment in the 14th century in Gothic script. It was cut into pieces and between 1467 and 1485 used for a number of new bindings in Heilsbronn Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in Franconia. The fragments were restored from these bindings mostly during the second half of the 19th century. The leaves are partly cut off, they contain holes and some writing is rubbed off or damaged by glue. The multispectral images (30 pictures altogether) were taken in order to support the digital scholarly edition "Welscher Gast digital" in reading some heavily damaged areas of the fragments. This edition has been conducted between 2011 and 2019 by Jakub Šimek at the Sonderforschungsbereich (Collaborative Research Cluster) 933 "Materiale Textkulturen" at Heidelberg University and is currently being continued at the Heidelberg University Library. The multispectral imaging itself and the data analysis were undertaken within the scope of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Hamburg University. Both institutions were funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). Authority data record (Normdatensatz) of the manuscript at Deutsche Nationalbibliothek DOI link to the presentation of the manuscript at Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg URN link to the presentation of the manuscript at Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg Permanent URL to the presentation of the manuscript at Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg URN link to the presentation of the manuscript at Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnber

Multispectral Data of the Manichaean Epistles from the collections of Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung Berlin and Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie

Multispectral imaging was performed in Berlin (November 2019) and Warsaw (December 2021) to assist preparing a first published edition of all papyrus leaves identified as belonging to P. Berol. inv. 15998. These are the remnants of a codex containing copies of letters written by Mani or Manichaeus in a Coptic translation, as circulated amongst the Manichaean communities of Egypt in late antiquity. The artefact was acquired for the Berlin state museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) in the early 1930s. The print edition of these remains was published by Iain Gardner as Mani’s Epistles in 2022. The images can be viewed here as listed according to the page numbers assigned to them in the publication, and also referenced to the inventory numbers utilised by the museums in Berlin and Warsaw where they are now housed. For all further details refer to: I. Gardner, Mani’s Epistles. The Surviving Parts of the Coptic Codex Berlin P. 15998, (Manichäische Handschriften der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Band II), W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2022. High resolution, color and processed TIFF images can be viewed in the viewer or downloaded for viewing. Complete multispectral datasets, as well as the brief explanation of MSI datasets can be found and downloaded at the bottom of the list

Multispectral Imaging of Manuscript Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek, Fragm. lat. 9a

Multispectral imaging of this set of music fragments (Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek fragm. lat. 9a) was performed between February 10 and 14, 2020, at the Stadtbibliothek in Nuremberg and subsequently processed

Multispectral Imaging of Manuscript Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek, Fragm. lat. 9

Multispectral imaging of this set of music fragments (Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek, fragm. lat. 9) was performed between February 10 and 14, 2020, at the Stadtbibliothek in Nuremberg and subsequently processed