An Italian news outlet is reporting that more of the Vatican archives will be digitized such as the oldest version of the Gospels of Luke and John, there is the Canzoniere of Petrarch written by the hand of the poet or the Divine Comedy by Dante illustrated by Botticelli. Overall, it is about 80,000 manuscripts, 150,000 prints, drawings and matrices, 9,000 incunabula and much more.

The Daily Best reported; “Digitization is one of the new frontiers of museums all over the world. Today, with just a few clicks, we can download Leonardo da Vinci’s human anatomy directly from the Royal Collection Trust website in London, all the MOMA catalogs in New York or the documentaries from the Prelinger archive. The patrimony of the Vatican Museums is now added to the list.

We are obviously talking about one of the oldest and most precious heritages in the world. Just to give some examples: there are papyri that contain the oldest version of the Gospels of Luke and John, there is the Canzoniere of Petrarch written by the hand of the poet or the Divine Comedy by Dante illustrated by Botticelli. Overall, it is about 80,000 manuscripts, 150,000 prints, drawings and matrices, 9,000 incunabula and much more.

Collection of polyphonic hymns 1538-1539 digitavaticana.org/ – Collection of polyphonic hymns 1538-1539

In 2013 an ambitious digitization project was inaugurated in order to preserve these texts and make them available to anyone wishing to consult them online. A few days ago the Vatican Digita, the non-profit organization that takes care of the project and collects funds to bring it forward, announced that it had reached 10% of the archive.

At the moment, 9,000 manuscripts have been digitally ejected, of which about 7,000 are already on the digitavaticana.org website. Through the internal search engine you can browse the current catalog looking for the author, the title or the signature, or organize a search in more detail by introducing the words you need or the phrases with which start certain pages.

According to what was communicated on the site of Digita Vaticana, for the project to be completed requires an investment of 50,000 million euros and a work of about fifteen years. Given the pace at which they are proceeding, however, it is conceivable that they will need at least twice as much.

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