Case Study

Partner institution: Leipzig University Library

Financed by: Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation Grant

Collaborator: Ivana Dobcheva M.A., Central European University, Budapest

Advisor: Dr. Christoph Mackert, Leipzig University Library

A large portion of the rich fragment collection at the Leipzig University Library remains to this day uncatalogued and hence unexplored. A noteworthy exception are the fragments found in situ in historic bindings of incunabula volumes – 2014 their content and codicological features were published by the Leipzig manuscript centre within the catalogue of incunabula. This data will now be integrated in the Fragmentarium database, serving in this manner as a model for retrospective conversion of analogue fragment descriptions into digital ones.

The current case study focuses on the circa 850 disjoint fragments from the library collection, which are only partially examined. In the period 2008 to 2011 the manuscript centre of the Leipzig University Library prepared an inventory, listing all fragments stored in boxes, giving them shelfmarks and recording basic codicological data. Building on this work, the objective of the fellow, Ms Ivana Dobcheva, is to catalogue scholarly a part of the Latin disjoint fragments, recording their content and further codicological and palaeographical characteristics. In addition, the fragments will be digitized by the library. The expected number to be processed within the 13,5 months is 250 fragments. The aim of the case study is thus to provide new source material for future studies – publicly available and searchable in the Fragmentarium database.

Ivana Dobcheva specialises in manuscript studies and early medieval science literature. She is working on a PhD entitled “Transmission and Reception of the Aratea in the Latin West (8th - 12th c.)”.

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