Hidden Fragments, Hidden Stories

Heritage Science and the Materiality of Manuscripts

The National Library of Norway, in collaboration with the ERC-funded CODICUM project, organizes a heritage science seminar on the materiality of medieval manuscripts and book fragments.

The seminar will highlight recent advances in heritage science and provide opportunities to discuss methodological challenges. Bringing together researchers, conservators, and heritage scholars, the event explores how parchment, pigments, and inks can reveal new insights into the production and use of books in the Middle Ages.

Draft programme

10 November 

12.00-12.30: Welcome, introduction: Arthur Tennøe, National Library of Norway and Åslaug Ommundsen University of Bergen, Codicum.

First session: Fragments, materiality and science

12.30-13.00: Breaking the Boundaries: Towards a Medieval History as It Has Never Been Studied Before, Tuomas Heikkilä (CODICUM, Helsingin Yliopisto, Helsinki)

13.00-13.30: Book production in medieval Iceland: A special case? Beeke Stegmann, (Árnastofnun, Reykjavík)

13.30-14.00: Fragments buried in palimpsests – examples from the Icelandic manuscript material, Tom Lorenz (Scribes of the North project, University of Bergen)

Second session. Materiality I: Parchment 

14.30-15.00: Fragment of the Insular Gospel of St. Mark from the Lobkowicz library: History of the secondary use and visual assessment of parchment, Jiří Vnouček (INSULAR/CODICUM, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen)

15.00-15.30: Coding biocodicology: Thoughts and challenges on working at scale, Matthew Collins (CODICUM, University of Copenhagen)

15.30-16.00: Embracing the masses – adapting the mindset: Establishing a workflow of large-scale sampling at the Swedish National Archives, Anna Lagerqvist Alidoost (CODICUM, Riksarkivet, Stockholm)

16.00-16.30: Mont Saint-Michel manuscripts – Focus on eleventh-century scriptorium practices, Laurianne Robinet (Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation, National Research Center CNRS, Paris)

11 November 

Third session: Materiality II: Inks

09.00-09.30: Non-invasive analysis of inks in manuscripts, challenges and opportunities, Emeline Pouyet (Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation, National Research Center CNRS, Paris)

09.30 -10.00: Gel-supported micro-extraction for molecular fingerprinting of binding media in written heritage, Veronica Biolcati (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow)

10.00-10.30: Hyperspectral imaging, Jon Yngve Hardeberg (The Colourlab – NTNU)

Fourth session Materiality III: Pigments

11.00-11.30: Beyond the Surface: A Non-Invasive Study of Colour in Medieval Swedish Book Fragments, Thea Winther (CODICUM, Riksarkivet, Stockholm)

11.30-12.00: A non-invasive analytical workflow for the investigation of historical documents, Lavinia de Ferri, Calin Steindal (Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo) and Linda Biasci (University of Pisa)

12.00-12.30: Preliminary analysis of medieval manuscripts from the National Library, Chiara Palandri and Francesca Incoronato (National Library of Norway)

Workshop (for speakers and invited guests only)  

Conservation lab

13.30-16.00: Non-invasive analysis

1.Visual analysis of parchment as a starting point for scientific analysis

2.A closer study of the National Library’s manuscript and fragment collection from a material perspective