Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Vatican to Digitize 41 Million Pages of Ancient Manuscripts


Doors leading to the Salone Sistino, a reading room for printed books in the Vatican Apostolic Library (courtesy of the Vatican Library)
Doors leading to the Salone Sistino, a reading room for printed books in the Vatican Apostolic Library (via Vatican Library)
What happens when a wide swath of history — previously only explored by white-gloved librarians and erudite historians — is made available to anyone with a solid internet connection? Thanks to the Pope, we’ll soon find out.
The Vatican Apostolic Library has announced it will digitize all 82,000 manuscripts in its 135 collections with the help of a Japanese IT company. That’s 41 million pages spanning nearly 2,000 years of church history that will soon be clickable, zoomable, and presumably, printable. When all is said and done, you’ll be able to read the Psalms handwritten across13th-century vellum on your iPhone — so long as you speak ancient Greek.

More to be seen about this and other great interest features at


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