Scattered Leaves and Virtual Manuscripts: The Promise of Digital Fragmentology

A Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) colloquium

Thursday, Sept. 27
4:30 pm
Shannon Library, St. Thomas More College

In the first half of the twentieth century, book dealers in the United States discovered that they could significantly increase profits if they cut up early books and manuscripts and sold them page by page. As a result, thousands of precious medieval manuscripts were dismembered and their leaves scattered in a seemingly irreparable scourge of biblioclasm. Today, however, innovative imaging and online technologies are allowing students, librarians, and scholars around the world, including here in Saskatchewan, to digitally repair these books. In this lecture, Lisa Fagin Davis will discuss the history of material fragmentation and digital reconstruction, introducing the nascent field known as "Fragmentology."

Lisa Fagin Davis is the Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America and the author of the Manuscript Road Trip blog.