Master’s project work “Methods, tools, technologies for analysis, description and documentation of ancient manuscript and printed heritage“

Dr. Giuseppina Civitillo

Year of Master’s degree participation: 2023-2024 and currently enrolled in the second year

Title of project work: A written memory to be digitized: the case of Montecassino

The project work aims to highlight the interoperability between two seemingly different worlds, namely, analogic and digital, and how they can interact with each other for a single purpose: to ensure the protection, preservation and free enjoyment of the written memory of Montecassino. This work was created as part of the project “MeMo-Memory of Montecassino” and it is aimed at digitalising part of the heritage preserved in the Abbey Archives (manuscripts, documents anf fragments). The image acquisition process was examined in detail, in accordance with Italian and international guidelines and standards, with attention to the methodologies adopted, the tools used and the digital archiving criteria. Specific case studies were also considered in the project work in order to highlight the critical issues and the solutions from time to time adopted in the digitization process. Underlying the choice of book and archival material there is a very specific ratio: the marking of the existing link between Montecassino and the “Alto Casertano” territory, as evidenced by the notarial documents examined. This reserach implies to consider an imaginary geographic line that reaches as far as Capua, the place of production of the Casin.175, a manuscript wanted by Abbot John I for defining his cultural policy. Digitization makes it possible to create a bridge between past, present and future and to relive the history and magnificence of the Land of Sancti Benedicti.

Civitillo, G., & Nardone, Y. (2024). Preserving, describing, and enhancing library and documentary heritage, Libraries Today, 7 [10.3302/0392-8586-202407-078-1].

Dr. Ylenia Nardone

Year of Master’s degree participation: 2023-2024 and currently enrolled in the second year

Title of project work: A written memory to be digitized: the case of Montecassino

The project work carried out for the Master’s degree was conceived within the framework of the project “MeMo-Memory of Montecassino” and it had as research object the digitization of the rich written heritage of the Abbey Archives. The aim was to present and explore from the inside the actual work activity on the Cassinese library and the documentary collection, making explicit in a clear and linear way the methods used, the techniques experimented and the digital devices used for the acquisition and preservation of images. In this way, an attempt was also made to show the difficulties encountered in the reproduction process and the solutions adopted to overcome these problems, so as to propose a modus operandi useful in situations of similar approach. In this regard, case studies with different states of preservation were considered: Manuscript Casin. 318, the only source that has come down to us today of musical thought from the entire Western Middle Ages; Casin. 72, a witness of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob; two archival documents containing donations of lands in the areas of today’s municipalities of Aquino and Castrocielo (both in the province of Frosinone); and finally, by broadening the study to include fragments, specimens in Beneventan minuscule were chosen as evidence of books that disappeared and were reused for different purposes. The overall work has highlighted the need to continue investing time and resources in digitization activities, with the aim of broadening and improving access to assets that are as precious as they are perishable, in order to preserve and enhance the millennial memory of the Abbey of Montecassino for both the present and the future.

Civitillo, G., & Nardone, Y. (2024). Preserving, describing, and enhancing library and documentary heritage, Libraries Today, 7 [10.3302/0392-8586-202407-078-1].