Choir Leaf
In the summer of 2010, a professor from the University of South Carolina, Dr. Scott Gwara, came to visit the Rare Book Room to look at some illuminated manuscript leaves which are in our collection. Two leaves were from a liturgical book of the Western Christian church (choir leaves), written in Latin on vellum and dating to around 1500. Three leaves were from a medieval manuscript Bible, also written in Latin on vellum, and dating to 1250 Paris.
Medieval Bible leaf
Dr. Gwara studies medieval manuscripts in national collections, and was interested in locating and re-uniting the discrete, and usually scattered, manuscript pages into virtual books, giving scholars the ability to “see” the complete manuscripts as they were originally created. This fall, Dr. Gwara contacted us again to let us know that a new project called manuscriptlink is now underway at the University of South Carolina to do just that. Their Center for Digital Humanities will re-unite manuscript pages into “virtual books” which will be readable through page-turner software. Plans are underway to collect thousands of leaves from hundreds of collections, and support for the project, as evidenced by the list of the Board of Directors, is strong and widespread, including members from OSU, the University of Toronto, the University of Kent (UK), Yale University, and the Rare Book School at UVA.
Choir leaf
Davidson has scanned and sent the images of our choir leaves and our medieval Bible to Dr. Gwara to be included, and we’re looking forward to being a part of this exciting project!
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