Partner Project

Full Title: Ticinensia disiecta: Medieval manuscript fragments in Latin script conserved in libraries and archives in the Canton of Ticino (Switzerland)

Partner Institution: Centre of Competence for Ancient Books (CCLA), Biblioteca Salita dei Frati, Lugano (Switzerland)

Financed by: Fondazione Ferdinando e Laura Pica-Alfieri, Lugano (Switzerland), Fondazione Aldo e Cele Daccò, Lugano (Switzerland), and others foundations

Project Leader: Marina Bernasconi 

Academic collaborators: Renzo Iacobucci, Laura Luraschi, Chiara Cauzzi (2020), Ruben Celani (2025), Laura Albiero (2026)

The aim of the project is to inventory, catalogue and study fragments of codices and of other medieval documents that are conserved in libraries and archives located in the Canton of Ticino (Switzerland). The ultimate goal is to promote a patrimony that until now has been almost totally unknown.

The research takes into account all kinds of reuse of fragments: covers and outer coverings adapted to books or to archival materials from every epoch, reinforcements of book backs and other kinds of binding fragments, without distinction to whether they are detached or still in situ.

The project is conceived by the CCLA, the Centre of Competence for Ancient Books (Biblioteca Salita dei Frati) in Lugano. In its first phase, it intends to focus on materials found inside libraries that have already been the subject of cataloguing projects led by the CCLA: the library of the monastery of Madonna del Sasso in Locarno, that of the monastery of Santa Maria in Bigorio, and the library Biblioteca Salita dei Frati in Lugano.

The first phase (2020-2025) focused on materials conserved in the library of Madonna del Sasso, amounting to 169 documents already published online. The second phase will examine the volumes in the ancient library of the Capuchin Convent in Lugano.

Images of the fragments and the data providing a new scientific description are published online as part of the international database fragmentarium.ms.

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