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1. Cooperative Manuscript Descriptions
Collaboration between researchers and manuscript conservators has produced many new manuscript descriptions on e-codices. The Bern Burgerbibliothek attests to this scientific collaboration, having already published 16 new detailed descriptions. Often the specialist has deeper knowledge of the contents of the manuscripts and literature pertaining to it, while the manuscript conservator is better prepared to treat the manuscript’s codicology and history. Thus Dr. Florian Mittenhuber of the Burgerbibliothek Bern has already collaborated with Richard Trachsler (Zürich, new this update: Cod. 388), Henry Hope (University of Bern), Gerhard Schwedler (Zürich), Charlotte Denoël (Paris), Pierre Chambert-Protat (Paris, now at the Vatican Library), Norbert Kössinger (Constance), Christoph Eggenberger (Zürich), Sabine Utz (Lausanne) and Michael I. Allen (Chicago). Thus, two descriptions prepared with Prof. Allen have been published in the last update: Cod. 433 (Ps-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium, ninth century) and Cod. 451, which was probably copied on the initiative of Lupus of Ferrières.
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2. Alchemy in St. Gall
The Vadianische Sammlung of the Kantonsbibliothek St. Gallen possesses an extensive collection of alchemical texts that belonged to Bartlome Schobinger (1500-1585), the wealthy merchant and alderman (Ratsherr) of the city of St. Gall. As can be seen from the notes that he left in these manuscripts, Schobinger was intensively engaged in alchemy. The manuscripts contain tables and diagrams of alchemical processes of the sort that are often found in writings ascribed to Raimundus Lullus.
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3. Regional History and e-codices
In the Libraries and Archives of Switzerland there are many sources of foundational importance for regional history. Even when the sources are stored in libraries and archives, access is difficult because of the lack of a printed edition. Local chronicles, rent-rolls, registers, land account books, almanacs, cartularies, statutes, etc., contain far more significant texts than could possibly be edited by traditional means. For this reason, digital editions, even when they just publish images and descriptions, provide an extremely valuable complement to traditional research tools. Recently, e-codices has published digital editions of important documents for the local history of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries from the Landesarchiv Appenzell Innerrhoden, the Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne in Porrentruy and the Musée Jurassien d’Art et d’Histoire in Delémont.
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4. Between Print and Manuscript
The Geneva manuscript Ms. fr. 172 contains primarily the Autograph “Le Mars” on the art of war by Philippe Prevost, advisor and Grand Master of King Henry IV. Although the text was prepared for print and illustrated with drawings probably taken from copper engravings, it was never printed. Dr. Brigitte Roux, project collaborator for e-codices, prepared the description of the manuscript.
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