London's British Library presently archives 150 million items in almost every language known to mankind. A respected repository of manuscripts, maps, magazines, prints, drawings, patents, postage stamps, musical scores and sound recordings, its holdings grow by 3 million items annually. Many of the institution's rare books and other works are extremely fragile, making their handling by anybody other than scholars impossible and their public exhibition highly uncommon. With that in mind, the British Library partnered with Armadillo Systems, a London-based media communications company. Together they developed Turning the Pages 2.0, launched on January 30, 2007.
Currently available on the library's website are a select number of manuscripts whose delicate pages can now be viewed virtually by Internet users, giving them access to many of history's exceptional treasures. They range in subject and age from the Diamond Sutra (868 A.D.), the world's earliest dated printed book (a Chinese seven-sheet scroll), to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1864). For those interested in medieval and Renaissance works, the British Library has digitized quite a few titles, including the 259 leaves (pages) of the Lindisfarne Gospels (ca. 720) and the Codex Arundel (ca. 1478-1517) by Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), all accessible using the TTP technology.
The Luttrell Psalter
In the first half of the Fourteenth Century, Lord Geoffrey Luttrell, a prosperous English landowner, commissioned the production of a religious volume that has come to be known as the Luttrell Psalter (ca. 1320-40). The book's Old Testament Psalms were written by a single scribe and richly illustrated by at least five artists. Its painted images, highlighted with traces of gold and silver, provide a somewhat idealized picture of everyday rural life in later medieval England, all tailored to the private taste of the wealthy Lord Geoffrey for whom this collection of ancient Biblical songs was created. Depictions of farming, the preparation of cuisine, delightfully dancing villagers and a bloodletting physician accompany those of the mythical monstrous races, the hideous and terrifying hybrid figments of the medieval imagination, giving visual form to their imaginary existence.
The Sforza Hours
In medieval and Renaissance Europe, books of hours were Christian meditative texts of a personal nature, each divided into eight sections of daily prayer. They usually included liturgical calendars, saintly devotions and services recited for the deceased. The Sforza Hours (ca. 1490) is one such well-preserved volume from fifteenth-century Italy. Its illuminated pages were first decorated luxuriously by Giovan Pietro Birago (ca. 1450-1513), an Italian miniaturist and court painter for Bona of Savoy (1449-1503), the widow of Gian Galeazzo Sforza (1469-94), the Milanese duke. Birago's sequence of miniature paintings in Bona's book of hours was completed between 1517 and 1520 by the Flemish master Gerard Horenbout (1465-1541) and presumably given to the Hapsburg Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1519-56).
Despite a high-speed or Broadband connection, downloading each manuscript's files to one's computer takes a little time. And learning how to maneuver the cursor over each work to explore its contents requires some practice. But the thrill of turning a page virtually in the history of art, using the British Library's TTP technology, is well worth the investment in time and effort.
Sources:
Bambach, Carmen (ed.), et al. Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman (exh. cat.). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003, 62, 64-65, 75, 133, 196, 198, 200, 229, 236-237, 422, 475, 477, 540, 548, 574, 628.
Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.
_____, The World of the Luttrell Psalter. London: The British Library, 2007.
Evans, Mark L. The Sforza Hours. London: The British Library, 1992.
Howard, Philip. The British Library: A Treasure House of Knowledge. London: Scala Publishers, 2007.
