Andrea Puglia: Digitising, musealising and analysing the medieval book: Models drawn from the study case of Volterra, Pisa, Tuscany.

In this paper I want to demonstrate a ‘work in progress' project done by LUV (Laboratorio Universitario Volterrano) of the University of Pisa. The activity of LUV mainly concerns keeping a large number of medieval written artefacts such as liturgical and lay manuscripts, acts and law books from the 10th to the 15th-centuries in the archives and libraries of the town (Archivio Arcivescovile, Archivio Comunale e Biblioteca Guarnacci).

The aim of the project is to preserve, process and spread the archival and book heritage of Volterra. The main manuscripts of the project are the liturgical books of the 12th and 13th centuries and the laws books of the 13th century.

Firstly, the project wants to build a database of digital images of Volterran manuscripts in the Biblioteca Guarnacci and to link each image or group of images to files describing codicological features of the manuscripts, classifying and index-linking them. The database is a ‘work in progress', a dynamic corpus, that will be expanded and improved by new analysis and new scientific contributions.

The second goal of the project is to analyse the virtual musealisation possibilities of medieval books and deciding in which context the virtual documents can be utilized: in the museum, at public and private exhibitions, or as collection of specimens for research students. This analysis has to be made in a comparative way, by studying different cases which already have been tested.

I want to deal with each image through a graphic processors, which allows researchers to work directly with the image, making a virtual restoration, analysis of parts of letters, and comparing the two.

In short, the main objectives of the project are the reproduction, analysis and publication of medieval documents. Speaking of these topics, in paleographic analysis and in digital editions it will be most important work through the following tools: Macrophotography, stereo microscopy and Raman microscopy, microprofiler 3D, riflettography and an imagining processor.

Finally, starting with the case of Volterra, I will try and show the possibilities of preservation and care of medieval heritage in a Tuscan context. The main focus will be on the structure and conservation of medieval written texts in a small town, which was very important in the Middle Ages, and the analysis of the possible uses of written heritage by scientists.