EARLY MODERN
HISTORY
Florentine Libraries and Digital Watermarks
When it comes to manuscript studies, DH presents extraordinary promise for international collaboration. In 2013, working with Yale colleagues in Classics, Manuscript Studies, Computer Science, Beinecke Rare Book Library, the Riccardiana Library and the Institute for International Studies in Florence, I co-launched FLIP, the Florentine Libraries Intermapping Project, with Dr. Claudia Rammelt-Portogallo, a colleague from the Yale classics department.
After assembling a 10-person team and negotiating digitization rights, we started WARP, the WAtermarks Recognition Project, where in partnership with the Chair of Yale Computer Science, the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, the Institute of Museum and Library Science, and Yale Digital Collections Center (YDC2), we worked on developing a method for digitally recognizing watermarks in Renaissance manuscripts using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT).
My interest in Book History led to the creation of the WordPress blog Bibliofile, which became the Yale Program in the History of the Book. Click below to visit.
Florentine Lactantius MS with Bianchi-Girari Decoration and Watermark callout. Click below to learn more about watermarks!
RTI - Reflectance Transformation Imaging - is a way of using light from multiple angles to reconstruct a surface. Click here for the WARP watermarks proposal.
The Florentine Libraries Intermapping Project Website—currently on hiatus!
Teaching with MS at the Riccardiana
Portrait of Dante Alighieri in a Riccardiana MS