Abstract

Hundreds of thousands of pre-modern European manuscripts have survived until the present day. As the result of changes in their ownership over the centuries, they are now spread all over the world. Collectively they constitute a great cultural and scholarly treasure. There are many sources of data relating to them, and new sources continue to proliferate in the digital environment. This project will link disparate datasets from Europe and North America to provide an international view of the history and provenance of these manuscripts. The aggregated data will enable researchers to analyse and visualize these topics at scales ranging from individual manuscripts to thousands of manuscripts. Our research will address their origins and movements, and the collectors and owners involved in their history. We will be able to show how these manuscripts have traveled across time and space to their current locations, where they continue to find new audiences.