Descriptive cataloguing of illuminated manuscripts (6th to 12th centuries) in Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter Burschel
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 329229189

The aim of the project is to provide a modern descriptive catalogue of the illuminated manuscripts which are owned by the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. This second part of the project deals with 81 codices. Most of them are from the 12th century. The descriptive cataloguing follows the standards set by the German Research Foundation (DFG) including full and detailed descriptions of the important codicological matters (binding, clasps, fittings, waste papers, layout, illumination, watermarks), of the palaeography and of the origin and provenance of the codex. The most important parts of the manuscript descriptions in this context are the complete registration and analysis of decoration and illumination. Descriptions are made according to the chronology of production and to the scriptoria where they were written. The catalogue will be completed with a preface, a bibliography and the usual indexes of names, places and subject matters, quoted manuscripts, initia, versus etc. The cataloguing is done in the XML markup language format TEI-P5. The XML-encoding of the manuscript descriptions provided by the editor will be the basis for the printed catalogue and the online publications of all descriptions in the local manuscript database of the Herzog August Library and in the central database 'Manuscripta Mediaevalia'.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)