Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Mellon Funds Efforts to Bring Medieval Works to the Digital World
At Lehigh University, a visitor to the Linderman Library can plunge into the Middle Ages and study a 15th-century text that shows the Earth as the center of the universe.
Or touch the pages of an oversize religious songbook, adorned with gold leaf and painted in bright hues on calfskin, and held by monks hundreds of years ago as they lifted their voices in unison. . .
Soon, viewers won't have to travel to Bethlehem, Pa., to view Lehigh's varied medieval collection. Anyone anywhere in the world will be able to see the items with a click of a mouse.
Lehigh, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvania are leading a project, called Bibliotheca Philadelphienis, that will digitalize the largest regional collection of medieval and early modern manuscripts in the country. . .