Author: mirkam

Homework

  1. Abbreviations: <abbr> </abbr>
  2. Expanded: <expan> </expan>
  3. Rubric/heading, e.g. oratio: <rubric> </rubric>
  4. Decoration/miniatures: <decoNote> </decoNote>
  5. Unclear: <unclear> </unclear>

Decoration and overview of damage (Krisztina and Miriam)

The manuscript is decorated with seven larger scale figural and twenty-four smaller non-figural initials. The borders and in the case of the pages with figural initials also the bas-de-page are decorated with vines and vegetal motifs. The illuminations are attributed to the so-called Maître François, active between 1462 and 1480. The materials are tempera and gold on parchment. Some damage on the upper corners can be observed, which is most visible on pages with decorated upper borders. Touch marks can be noted especially on ff. 171v, 172r, 176v. 

The figural illuminations are: St Michael (171v), John the Baptist (172r), Peter and Paul (173r), St James (not specified, but it is the Greater given his iconography) (174r), Martyrdom of St Sebastian (175v), St Anthony (176v), Mary Magdalene (177v).

Pre-Workshop Reflection

I found Gailey’s discussion of the limitations of digital humanities really interesting.  She explains how, even as digitization opens up new avenues of research and enables a wider audience to access difficult or rare texts, the act of digitizing requires decisions on what data to present and how that inevitably obscure aspects of the original.  Gailey offers an example in the difficulty of rendering phonetic dialects.  Digitization in this case was an attempt to make a particular work universally available and comprehensible; but this could not be done without altering the work.  The solution to code “original” and “regularized” text was an innovative solution that drives home the point that digitization must be taken in a case by case basis.  I’m very excited to learn about the particular difficulties presented in digitizing medieval manuscripts and the creative solutions people have discovered!

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