The Cataloguing of 876 Medieval and Early Modern Latin Manuscripts from Heidelberg's Bibliotheca Palatina in the Vatican Library in Rome

• Applicant: Dr. Jochen Apel, since 10/2023
• Subject Area: Principles of Law and Jurisprudence ; Roman Catholic Theology ; Medieval History
• Term: from 2014 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 251104717

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

Starting from a very heterogeneous indexing situation of the Heidelberg Bibliotheca Palatina, the project mostly closed the existing gaps for the Latin Palatina manuscript holdings. The aim was to index them scientifically and in-depth, building on the existing preliminary work for 876 Latin codices of the Bibliotheca Palatina. The results will be presented online as part of the virtual reconstruction of what was once Germany's most famous library in the portal "Bibliotheca Palatina – digital". This replaced Stevenson’s outdated and inadequate catalogue. Moreover, initial cataloguing was done for 93 manuscripts. Thus, for the first time, modern bibliographic records meeting scientific standards are available for almost the entire collection of Latin Palatina manuscripts. The in-depth indexing, combined with the online provision of the previously difficult-to-access manuscripts with financial support from other sources, creates for the first time a complete and scientifically sufficient working basis for a large number of medievalist disciplines. This applies equally to theology, philosophy, philology and history. Research on the history and significance of the Bibliotheca Palatina can now done comprehensively for the first time. The description information is recorded by XML coding according to TEI-P5 using GND standard vocabulary, thus following current standards. The indexing data can be automatically transferred to the K10plus network via conversion stylesheets (TEI-XML data to MARCXML) that have been specially created and are available for subsequent use. The results produced by the project can be searched via the project's own database-supported search-tool "PalatinaSEARCH". The intended inclusion in the Manuscript Portal (HSP) is still pending, as the corresponding import routines and interfaces are in the process of being set up in the current second project phase of the HSP. In accordance with the open-access strategy of Heidelberg University Library, the project results will also be published as open-access e-books with a print-on-demand option on the Heidelberg platform heiBOOKS. The PDF files for the electronic open-access and printed bookstore editions were created using the heiPUBLISHING XML workflow, which was specially adapted to the project-specific requirements. The scientific cataloguing of the manuscripts is supplemented by value-added services: on the one hand, the digitisation and indexing of the watermarks contained in the paper manuscripts and, on the other hand, the art-historical indexing of the manuscripts' pictorial decorations.

Publications

• "PalatinaSearch" – Koha macht's möglich, Vortrag auf dem 103. Deutschen Bibliothekartag in Bremen, 05.06.2014
  Maria Effinger & Katrin Fischer
  
• Bibliotheca Palatina – digital. La reconstitution d’une bibiothèque célèbre, in: Francia. Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 42 (2015), S. 291-306
  Maria Effinger & Karin Zimmermann
  
• Digitalisierung an der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg 2001–2017 – eine Zeitreise, 3. Österreichischer Bibliothekartag, Linz, 13.09.2017
  Maria Effinger
  
• Kulturgut sichtbar machen. Digitalisieren, Edieren und Vernetzen an der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg mit DWork. Präsentation im Rahmen des Workshops „Fragile Materialien auf dem Scanner: Werkstattgespräch Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach“, 17.10.2017
  Maria Effinger
  
• „Digital Libraries. How to build them and how to use them”. Vortrag beim internationalen Workshop “Insular Manuscripts AD 650–850: Networks of Knowledge” am The Moore Institute at the National University of Ireland in Galway/Irland, 21./22.06.2018
  Karin Zimmermann
  
• „Habent sua fata libelli – Der Codex Manesse und seine Geschichte(n)“, Vortrag im Rahmen der Landesausstellung „Kaiser und die Säulen ihrer Macht“, Landesmuseum Mainz, 25. August 2020
  Karin Zimmermann
  
• „Bestände sichtbar machen. Die Historischen Sammlungen der UB Heidelberg und ihre Erschließung“, Vortrag im Rahmen der „Akademische Mittagspause 2022“, Heidelberg (Peterskirche), 05. Juli 2022
  Karin Zimmermann
  
• „Die Bibliotheca Palatina und ihre Geschichte(n) – Anmerkungen zu bekannten und weniger bekannten Handschriften“, Vortrag im Rahmen der Veranstaltungsreihe zur Bibliotheca Palatina, Heidelberg (Heiliggeistkirche), 28. Juni 2023
  Karin Zimmermann
  
• „Die Bibliotheca Palatina und Ludwig III.“, Vortrag im Rahmen der Tagung „Pfalzgraf Ludwig III. bei Rhein. Kurfürst – Konzilsprotektor – Landesherr“, Neustadt/Weinstr., 24. März 2023
  Karin Zimmermann