Vercelli, city, capital of vercelli provincia, piemonte piedmont regione, northwestern italy. We began the recovery process auspisciously, setting up sidebyside imaging stations in a suite of. It contains texts of the poem andreas, two poems by cynewulf, the dream of the rood, an address of the saved soul to the body, and a fragment of a homiletic poem, as well as 23 prose homilies and a prose life of st. Comments on the beta version will assist in production of the final version later this year. In one room, we imaged the vercelli book, the oldest manuscript of old english in existence. The vercelli book transcription is following the standard tei schemas with no custom elements or attributes added. Researchers of the digital vercelli book project started looking into a simple, userfriendly solution and eventually decided to build their own. This tool was born as part of the dvb digital vercelli book project in order to allow the creation of a digital edition of the vercelli book, a parchment codex of the late tenth century, now preserved in the archivio e biblioteca capitolare of vercelli and regarded as one of the four most important manuscripts of the anglosaxon period as regards the transmission of poetic texts in the old english language. Text with glossary in both old and modern english and images of the manuscript. As you can see from the images below, at the time about 200203.
The vercelli book is housed in the biblioteca capitolare in vercelli, in northern italy. The chief city of the libici a ligurian tribe, it later became a roman municipium town. This is the software used to create the digital vercelli book edition mentioned above, while for production we resorted to several different xml editors for text encoding and the image markup tool42 for annotating the manuscript areas corresponding to text lines and other points of interest. The digital vercelli book a facsimile edition of vercelli, biblioteca. The vercelli book contains a significant body of prose and poetry. Designing an advanced software tool for digital scholarly. However, the codex was documented in vercelli as early as the eleventh century. The digital vercelli book provides universal access to extremely highquality scans and machinereadable texts of vercelli, cathedral library. Almost all the texts in these manuscripts are unique and without them we would have a much poorer. The dream of the rood extended annotation version digital.
The vercelli book comprises 5 folios, and although the manuscript was probably compiled and written in the late 10th century, not all of the texts found in the manuscript were originally written at that time. Reading the anglosaxon self through the vercelli book explores conceptions of subjectivity in anglosaxon england by analyzing the contents and sources of the vercelli book, a tenthcentury compilation of old english religious poetry and prose. A digital edition of sir hans sloanes miscellanea which. He has published widely in the digital humanities and anglosaxon studies. This session explores recent critical studies in the vercelli book manuscript, old english poetry and prose, and tenthcentury vernacularity. A beta version is now november 2015 online, with at present only two sections of the text. New readings in the vercelli bookaddresses central questions concerning the manuscripts intended use, mode of compilation, and purpose, and offers a variety of approaches on such topics as orthography, style, genre, theme, and sourcestudy. In december 20 the beta version of the digital vercelli book went online. Reliable information about the coronavirus covid19 is available from the world health organization current situation, international travel. These library research grants, which have a value of up to 2. The campi raudii raudian fields to the south were the. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. Here is a modern english translation of the dream of the rood, here is the text in old english, and here is someone reciting it in old english on youtube.
New readings in the vercelli book toronto anglosaxon series 9780802098696. Theories and practices matthew james driscoll and elena pierazzo eds. It is an anthology of old english prose and verse that dates back to the late 10th century. While studying the vercelli book and conducting spectral imaging on the book s text, the sally mcdonnell barksdale honors college student learned the importance of finding ways to successfully transcribe old data and manuscripts. It published digital facsimiles and transcriptions of portions of the vercelli book, available at this link. The poems translated here are meant to provide a sense of some of this range and diversity. The vercelli book digital beta version using evt but, as it is possible to read in the tei guidelines, the scholar can choose to emphasize the importance of the physical surface and to encode words and other written traces as subcomponents of the xml elements representing the physical surface carrying them, rather than independently of them. The vercelli book, one of the four old english poetic codices. A trilingual manuscript of the new testament in digital research web book 3.
The digital vercelli book is online, and see also here and here for more info about it. Volume ii of the anglosaxon poetic records, the poetical parts of the vercelli book, also known as the vercelli codex, are here grouped together. The digital vercelli book 104v105r ma aa magnifier q 1. Sample collation against the manuscript images shows that the editing is impeccable. The beta version containing extracts of the vercelli book is available online for comment. It will concentrate on questions of materiality and pedagogy.
The vercelli book is one of the oldest of the four old english poetic codices the others being the junius manuscript, the exeter book, and the nowell codex. New readings in the vercelli book addresses central questions concerning the manuscripts intended use, mode of compilation, and purpose, and offers a variety of approaches on such topics as orthography, style, genre, theme, and sourcestudy. The vercelli book is one of the oldest of the four old english poetic codices it is an anthology of old english prose and verse that dates back to the late 10th. He has recently edited and translated the old english poem the battle of maldon 2009 and is the editor of the digital vercelli book, an ongoing project that aims at providing a full edition of this important manuscript. We cannot tell for certain where the manuscript was made. In this article i propose that the rationale of the compilation of the vercelli book is best appreciated if we group texts according to theme and content rather than form. The socalled vercelli book, written in a bold, firm hand, apparently by a single anglosaxon scribe at some time during the middle of the second half of the tenth.
Upon her return home, anthony submitted a written summary of her own proposal for how transcription methods can be. The tenthcentury vernacular anthology known as the vercelli book is one of the bestknown early medieval english manuscripts and has long been central to scholarly understanding of literary. The manuscript is housed in the capitulary library of vercelli, in northern italy. Wikipedia article on vercelli book, accessed 122420. Indeed, the recent launch of the digital vercelli book beta version offers an opportunity to assess the state of the field thus far as well as to anticipate future research. It published digital facsimiles and transcriptions of portions of the vercelli book, available at this. The vercelli book by george philip krapp goodreads. Secondly, the digital vercelli book will collect all the texts preserved in the ms. University of iowa special collections, if books could talk, episodes 16 videos.
The text is stored in the cathedral town for which it is named, in northern italy. Dating from the second half of the 10th century, it contains six verse texts and 23 prose homilies, written by one scribe. It lies along the sesia river, southwest of novara. This tool was born as part of the dvb digital vercelli book project in order to allow the creation of a digital edition of the vercelli book, a parchment codex of the late tenth century, now preserved in the archivio e biblioteca capitolare of vercelli and regarded as one of the four most important manuscripts of the anglosaxon period as. The conference, hosted by the kings college department of digital humanities, attracted notable paleographers and scholars from around the globe. Stanford libraries official online search tool for books, media, journals, databases, government documents and more. New readings in the vercelli book by samantha zacher.
The exeter book medieval studies oxford bibliographies. This volume presents the state of the art in digital scholarly editing. Medieval manuscripts on the web digitized manuscripts. Evt edition visualization technology has been under development since about 2010 and has turned into a flexible tool that can be used to create a webbased digital edition starting from. With the exception of some three or four homilies, these works have never before appeared in translated form, much less in a collection. The distinction between prose and verse appears to have been of little concern. Explore the digital vercelli book opens to the dream of the rood in class. Defaced by a german scholar in the 18th century using a chemical reagent, the otherwise pristine 10th century manuscript is marred by dark brown blots where the reagent was applied to the text.
New language, old english and teaching the tradition. The poems ascribed to cynewulf the fates of the apostles and. Drawing together the work of established and emerging researchers, it gives pause at a crucial moment in the history of technology in order to offer a sustained reflection on the practices involved in producing, editing and reading digital scholarly editionsand the theories that underpin them. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study. In the words of a modern critic elaine treharne, the vercelli book appears. These four books contain the vast majority of all surviving old english poetry. Application data preservation being all about making data available for reuse in other applications, a few tests have been performed on samples from the opus postumum and the digital vercelli book kindly provided by the bbaw and roberto rosselli del turco univ. This is a facsimile and diplomatic edition of codex vercellensis cxvii, archivio e biblioteca capitolare di vercelli. The exeter book is comprised solely of poetry excepting the contents of eight leaves added to the codex after it was written and, unlike the other anglosaxon manuscript containing poetry aloneoxford, bodleian library, ms junius 11, the junius manuscriptwhich is dedicated to biblically inspired items, the exeter book is noted for. Oclcs webjunction has pulled together information and resources to assist library staff as they consider how to handle coronavirus. The poems ascribed to cynewulf the fates of the apostles and elene. Reading the anglosaxon self through the vercelli book by. This book contains the twentythree prose works of the vercelli book, a late tenthcentury manuscript.
Evt was born in the context of the digital vercelli book project, which has been available in beta form for more than one year, but it has evolved in a tool suitable to fit different texts and needs. The vercelli book vercelli, cathedral library, ms cxvii is one of the oldest of the four old english poetic codices. Poems in anglosaxon with introduction, bibliography and notes in english. Vercelli book digitale is a project to digitize the whole of the vercelli book. The digital vercelli book provides universal access to extremely highquality scans and machinereadable texts of vercelli, cathedral library, ms 117, the manuscript that contains, among much other poetry and prose, the dream of the rood for this reason the digital vercelli book is a partner with the visionary cross project.
The vercelli book, one of the four old english poetic. Jan 09, 2012 the first one is dedicated to the memory of mons. Vercelli book project the spring 20 trip to the archivio capitolare in vercelli, italy, turned up a trove of fascinating palimpsests and manuscripts damaged in a variety of ways. A search functionality has been added for all edition levels, and evt also supports named entities and the handling of the corresponding lists. The homilies represent part of the anonymous tradition of religious prose writing in anglo saxon england. Towers gallery 6400 images, towers events chronology. There have been several incarnations of evt, right from the times when the idea of a digital vercelli book was just taking shape and well before even an experimental encoding of the transcription had been attempted. Vercelli book, latin codex vercellensis, old english manuscript written in the late 10th century. Italian medieval history the world wide virtual library.
The vercelli book is one of the four most significant verse manuscripts to survive from the anglosaxon period. While studying the vercelli book and conducting spectral imaging on the books text, the sally mcdonnell barksdale honors college student learned the importance of finding ways to successfully transcribe old data and manuscripts. The vercelli book hardcover october 15, 1932 by george philip krapp author see all 4 formats and editions hide other formats and editions. Numerous and frequentlyupdated resource results are available from this search.
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