Fragmentarium: because manuscript fragments count, too

Here’s where the freshly-launched Fragmentarium website comes into play.

Rolled out on 1 September 2017, Fragmentarium is an international digital research lab for medieval manuscript fragments that enables libraries, collectors, researchers and students to publish medieval manuscript fragments, allowing them to catalogue, describe, transcribe, assemble and re-use them online.

Collaborating with 16 partner institutions throughout Europe and the USA, the project aims, over the next years, to lay the foundations for research on medieval manuscript fragments by providing open standards and guidelines.

Fragments of medieval manuscripts offer an as-yet largely unexplored field of study. Except for isolated initiatives and individual, often spectacular discoveries, traditional manuscript research has so far only marginally undertaken work with fragments. The Internet offers extraordinary potential for overcoming some of the chief difficulties of traditional fragment research. Building on the technology developed by e-codices – Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, Fragmentarium offers an application for scholarly work with fragments. Collaborating with 16 partner institutions throughout Europe and the USA, the project aims, over the next years, to lay the foundations for research on medieval manuscript fragments by providing open standards and guidelines.