Current Techniques and Developments in the Study of Watermarks and Paper

Preview this chapter:

Current Techniques and Developments in the Study of Watermarks and Paper, Page 1 of 1

< Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/10.1484/M.BIB-EB.6.09070802050003050305020003/M.BIB-EB.3.4534-1.gif

[

This paper offers a three-part projection of what lies ahead for palaeographers and codicologists regarding the publication of paper descriptions, and what the next generation of scholars—today’s students—should be learning to prepare them for that future. It begins with a historical overview that highlights a set of long-lasting problems in the study and description of paper:

1. a historical ambivalence about the value of publishing descriptions of paper.

2. subversion of the need for universal, trans-disciplinary access to published paper data.

3. current methods of describing and publishing paper fail to support the palaeographical objective of reconstructing the history of Byzantine and post-Byzantine Greek book production.

Part Two traces the course of the current electronic revolution in paper description, focusing on digital imaging of paper and on the Bernstein Paper Portal and the Watermark Archive Initiative as approaches to the above problems. Part Three offers suggestions about the significance of this revolution for the work of today’s palaeographers and codicologists—for the near future, new approaches to the description of manuscripts and documents, and to the collection and publication that descriptive data, and in the longer range future, new ways of exploiting the evidence of paper. This section reviews recently developed tools for analysis of paper and identification of matching papers based on digital images and paper descriptions and their usefulness for Greek palaeographical and codicological studies.

In September 2008, the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca, 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca, the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts, and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries, taking into account new methodological approaches, the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.

The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries, dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering, writing and books in the Macedonian, Comnenian and Palaeologan periods, and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex, as well as other new research techniques. Finally, some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content, as well as with the history of texts.

The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography, presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin, who died in 2006.