With the technological and digital revolution
\nin full swing, a revolution that has also affected the editorial market,
\nvintage books, even manuscripts, cannot remain unaffected. Proof of that is the
\nlatest attempt at digitising new and old volumes from the collection of the
\nRomanian Academy Library. One of the projects, called Medievalia, is a website
\nwhere 60 manuscript volumes of old Romanian literature from the 15th
\nand 16th centuries have been stored after being digitised. Many of
\nthese manuscripts have been written in Old Church Slavonic, while others have
\nbeen written in Romanian with Cyrillic letters. The website is chiefly
\ntargeting scientists, but it may appeal to literature enthusiasts as well. Here
\nis Gabriela Dumitrescu, head of the office of manuscripts and rare books with
\nthe Academy Library:<\/p>\n
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Readers have now been given access to online
\ntexts, which are taught in schools, such as the Schei Psalter, the Voronet
\nPsalter and the Voronet Codex, as well as some other early texts in Romanian.
\nThey prove that the Romanian language had been spoken in this region before the
\nfirst half of the 16th century, when these texts were dated.
\nHowever, Old Church Slavonic, the language used in the princely chancelleries
\nand in church, played an important role in the development of Romanian culture.
\nThe earliest examples still to be preserved are church texts and make up the
\nbulk of our collection, which contains as many as 6,000 manuscripts.<\/p>\n
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Gabriela Dumitrescu also tells us that many of the manuscripts now
\navailable in digital format are genuine works of art, containing exquisite
\nilluminations and lettering: <\/p>\n
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These texts were written in Old Church Slavonic, Greek and Romanian. We
\nshowcase the texts that arrived here in Slavonic and Greek, and were
\nsubsequently translated into Romanian. For instance, we have digitised the
\nHurmuzachi Psalter, prayer books and hymn books, all of which were translated
\nfrom Old Church Slavonic. We have also digitised the manuscripts known as The
\nSalvation of Sinners and The Ladder, a famous text by Saint John Climacus which
\nwe have in several manuscript versions in Old Church Slavonic as well as in a
\nbeautifully illuminated 11th-century Greek manuscript that only
\ncontains the Odes. This particular manuscript was made at Mount Athos and is
\nnow to be found in the collection of the Academy Library. It was bought in 1955
\nor 1956, while many of our manuscripts are donations. The website also contains
\nmanuscripts in Old Church Slavonic and Greek with texts by the great
\ntheologians and Fathers of the Church Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom and
\nJohn of Damascus. Another rare manuscript now available in electronic format is
\nthe Psalm Book in Verses translated by the metropolitan and poet Dosoftei. This
\nis a digital copy of the original manuscript, and not the book printed by
\nDosoftei.<\/p>\n
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Browsing through the Medievalia website, you will also come across an
\nearly version of a cooking book. Gabriela Dumitrescu, the head of the
\nmanuscript and rare books department of the Academy Library, explains:<\/p>\n
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Our collection also contains the manuscript version of a cookbook, and
\neveryone tried to work out the recipes there. We also have a transcription of
\nthe book, which we plan to put on the website so that people can jot down the
\nrecipes they find there. It’s not easy to read the original manuscript because,
\nwhile written in Romanian, it used the Cyrillic alphabet.<\/p>\n
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The digitised versions of these manuscripts in the Romanian Academy
\nLibrary collections can be seen by going to the website medievalia.com.ro. The
\nproject, an initiative of the Excellence Through Culture Foundation, is
\nsupported by the Romanian Ministry of Culture and through Norwegian funding as
\npart of an EEGrants programme.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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