FRAGMENTOLOGY
More and more often a manuscript, sold for an affordable price by large auction houses, is bought by a team of medium-sized antiquarian galleries and then dismembered. Usually, such galleries share quires of the parent manuscript, and over time they put on the market single leaves from different quires, thus making the purchase of consecutive portions of the parent manuscript practically impossible. The paradigm of 'preserving the original' applied to manuscripts that have literally been torn apart and whose pieces now reside in alien hands is a true oxymoron. Fortunately, thanks to the WayBack Recovery Method© we now have the possibility to separate the original graphic and textual content from the container, giving rise to a new container, a text and image file, infinitely replicable. The digital copies of the single leaves sold in the last twenty years online regain their original location within a file with a new mise en page that gives an idea of how the now dismembered manuscript originally looked.
One-year specialisation course in Fragmentology: the WayBack Recovery Method©
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2022-2023 APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN
The selection is open. There is no age limit, but applicants should have obtained their Master or PhD no more than ten years from the date of the appointment. Researchers who have obtained their PhD more than 10 years ago, but are active in the field of codicology or philology are invited to apply on the basis of their Curriculum Vitæ and will be tested for admission through a motivational interview.
Admission decisions are based on the quality of the overall application file. The grant consists of €4,000 for each academic year.
Our selection committees give priority consideration to academic achievement and motivation. Academic achievement is documented using transcripts and recommendations. Motivation factors should be clarified in the cover letter/statement of purpose.
The evaluation committees will take into consideration the difficulties encountered by many students around the world in the spring 2020 semester, due to the COVID-19 health crisis.
The main language of the course is Italian, but a very good command of English is required to follow the seminars (seminars are also held in French and Spanish).
Deadline: 1 November 2022
The Wayback Recovery Method is taught during the one-year fragmentology specialisation course. Each student is offered the opportunity to publish his or her own digital reconstruction of a dismembered and recovered Book of Hours in the HoræHours series of our publishing house. The course fee is eight thousand euros per year, which is halved if you get an attendance grant. To obtain the grant, please see the conditions below.