Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PATRIMONiT (PATRIMONiT. From Cheap Print to Rare Ephemera: 16th-Century Italian 'Popular' Books at the British Library)
Reporting period: 2016-02-01 to 2018-01-31
Large quantities of 16th-Century Italian ‘popular’ books – the books read or ‘listened to’ by everyone during the Early Modern Period, printed with poor quality material and having usually a short life expectancy – sometime after the 16th century found their way to the UK to join the largest single collection of Italian 16th-century books outside Italy, the British Library (BL). This library preserves today a substantial number of early Italian editions which do not survive in any Italian library and are still not adequately recorded.
The objectives of the PATRIMONiT project were:
A) Bibliographical:
1) To survey all the 16th-century Italian ‘popular’ books now at the BL which do not survive in any Italian library;
2) to define new rules for cataloguing 16th-century ‘popular’ books and catalogue approx. 250 items in the PATRIMONiT database, entering the data in EDIT16 and in the CERL Thesaurus.
B) Historical: study the edition history of these books using archival sources, that is to examine the historical circumstances related to their survival and international circulation with a new methodology.
Carnelos demonstrated that this ephemeral material is of great importance in reconstructing the socio-cultural history of a country. Specifically, her aim was to understand when and why ‘popular’ books underwent a change in their perceived value, from books to be used and reused to books that were considered worthy of collection, and how historical events and cultural policies working across time and space influenced this change.
Supported by three centres of excellence (the Consortium of European Research Libraries or CERL, the British Library and the Istituto Centrale per il catalogo unico delle biblioteche italiane e per le informazioni bibliografiche or ICCU), the PATRIMONiT project combined the more recent developments in three main disciplines (Library Science, History and ICT), to tackle historical questions which cannot be approached and successfully solved individually.
The objectives of the PATRIMONiT project were:
A) Bibliographical:
1) To survey all the 16th-century Italian ‘popular’ books now at the BL which do not survive in any Italian library;
2) to define new rules for cataloguing 16th-century ‘popular’ books and catalogue approx. 250 items in the PATRIMONiT database, entering the data in EDIT16 and in the CERL Thesaurus.
B) Historical: study the edition history of these books using archival sources, that is to examine the historical circumstances related to their survival and international circulation with a new methodology.
Carnelos demonstrated that this ephemeral material is of great importance in reconstructing the socio-cultural history of a country. Specifically, her aim was to understand when and why ‘popular’ books underwent a change in their perceived value, from books to be used and reused to books that were considered worthy of collection, and how historical events and cultural policies working across time and space influenced this change.
Supported by three centres of excellence (the Consortium of European Research Libraries or CERL, the British Library and the Istituto Centrale per il catalogo unico delle biblioteche italiane e per le informazioni bibliografiche or ICCU), the PATRIMONiT project combined the more recent developments in three main disciplines (Library Science, History and ICT), to tackle historical questions which cannot be approached and successfully solved individually.
The research has been conducted on 256 16th-century books in the British Library, mainly part of the collection of sacre rappresentazioni of the library, which is one of the biggest collections of these books outside Italy. In addition, for a comparison, 74 similar books have been analysed at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Of a total of 330 records now in PATRIMONiT, 81 (68 unique copies, 8 unique variants, 5 books surviving only abroad) are the books which do not survive in any Italian libraries, that is 24.5% of the total!
The analysis ‘book in hand’ of the books has been integrated with systematic study of archival material of the BL, which is now partially at the British Museum and partially in the British Library.
OBJECTIVE A: To create the PATRIMONiT database and to enter the data in EDIT16
Part of the PATRIMONIT project has involved the creation of a database, PATRIMONiT, that was constructed using international standards for describing the specific material, textual and visual characteristics of popular books and their provenance history. Developed by Alexander Jahnke of Data Conversion Group (University of Göttingen), the PATRIMONiT database has been realised in accordance with CERL’s criteria of transferability and re-usability of bibliographical data. This means that it is an open access database with fields specifically created for the study of popular books, the data from which can be intelligently retrieved, combined and manipulated, as well as transferred into digital and other research contexts, so becoming useful for other research projects.
PATRIMONiT is operational from December 2016 and is available on line, hosted and maintained by CERL, and freely available on its website [http://data.cerl.org/patrimonit/_search]. All the preliminary operations have been supervised by Dr Cristina Dondi who is the creator of MEI (Material Evidence in Incunabula), which is used as a model, and supervisor of the current project.
OBJECTIVE B: To study the history of the Italian editions in the British Library using archival sources
The PATRIMONiT project demonstrated that British collectors were keen on buying Italian popular books of the 16th century especially from the second half of the 18th century onwards, when in Italy the same material was often neglected. The main bibliophiles in the UK, such as William Roscoe (1753-1831), John Towneley (1731-1813), Richard Heber (1773-1833), possessed in their libraries volumes of Italian 16th-century popular books. When they died, this material tended to be dispersed at auction sales. Due to changes in the scope of acquisition and preservation policies led by Antonio Panizzi, who worked in the British Museum Library from 1831 to 1866, becoming Keeper of Printed Books and later Principal Librarian, the British Museum turned into a potential buyer. Official reports, letters and minutes confirmed that many collections sold in France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, England were bought by the British Museum Library mainly during the first 70 years of the 19th century. The analysis of similar material at the Bodleian Library has highlighted the participation also of this library to the main sales of 16th- century Italian popular books in the country, with an increase in the second half of the 19th century, probably due to a higher purchase grant in this period.
The analysis ‘book in hand’ of the books has been integrated with systematic study of archival material of the BL, which is now partially at the British Museum and partially in the British Library.
OBJECTIVE A: To create the PATRIMONiT database and to enter the data in EDIT16
Part of the PATRIMONIT project has involved the creation of a database, PATRIMONiT, that was constructed using international standards for describing the specific material, textual and visual characteristics of popular books and their provenance history. Developed by Alexander Jahnke of Data Conversion Group (University of Göttingen), the PATRIMONiT database has been realised in accordance with CERL’s criteria of transferability and re-usability of bibliographical data. This means that it is an open access database with fields specifically created for the study of popular books, the data from which can be intelligently retrieved, combined and manipulated, as well as transferred into digital and other research contexts, so becoming useful for other research projects.
PATRIMONiT is operational from December 2016 and is available on line, hosted and maintained by CERL, and freely available on its website [http://data.cerl.org/patrimonit/_search]. All the preliminary operations have been supervised by Dr Cristina Dondi who is the creator of MEI (Material Evidence in Incunabula), which is used as a model, and supervisor of the current project.
OBJECTIVE B: To study the history of the Italian editions in the British Library using archival sources
The PATRIMONiT project demonstrated that British collectors were keen on buying Italian popular books of the 16th century especially from the second half of the 18th century onwards, when in Italy the same material was often neglected. The main bibliophiles in the UK, such as William Roscoe (1753-1831), John Towneley (1731-1813), Richard Heber (1773-1833), possessed in their libraries volumes of Italian 16th-century popular books. When they died, this material tended to be dispersed at auction sales. Due to changes in the scope of acquisition and preservation policies led by Antonio Panizzi, who worked in the British Museum Library from 1831 to 1866, becoming Keeper of Printed Books and later Principal Librarian, the British Museum turned into a potential buyer. Official reports, letters and minutes confirmed that many collections sold in France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, England were bought by the British Museum Library mainly during the first 70 years of the 19th century. The analysis of similar material at the Bodleian Library has highlighted the participation also of this library to the main sales of 16th- century Italian popular books in the country, with an increase in the second half of the 19th century, probably due to a higher purchase grant in this period.
The project has reached some important milestones:
1. the Agreement EDIT16-BL: for the first time EDIT16, the Italian National database of all books printed in Italy between 1501-1600, was officially opened to a foreign library, the BL. Now more than 8,945 BL books are searchable in EDIT16 and, of these, more than 800 are unique copies.
2. Contributions to EDIT16: around 500 bibliographical entries; around 800 images of editions; circa 170 links to digital copies.
3. The creation of the PATRIMONiT database, a fundamental research tool for the material, historical and bibliographical study of popular books and for tracing the copies of Italian books abroad.
4. The opening of HPB to the general public. The HPB is now freely available from hpb.cerl.org (January 2018).
5. Material characteristics of popular books: the research has scientifically proved for the first time that popular books were printed on low quality paper and cheaply.
7. The results of the in-depth and systematical analysis of archival material are visible in the records described in PATRIMONiT and fully accessible to everyone. The monograph ‘From Cheap Print to Rare Ephemera: 16th-Century Italian 'Popular' Books at the British Library’ (provisional title) containing these results has been drafted and the applicant will continue to work in order to publish it soon. Partial results have been disseminated over the two years through conferences, talks and seminars.
8. the testing of a new methodology to study book history was discussed by expert scholars in book history in the international conference “New sources for Book History. The Combined Methodological Approach for Manuscript and Printed Books”, organized by the applicant in collaboration with CERL and the BL (British Library, 28 November 2017).
PATRIMONiT was a successful pilot for finding a model to catalogue the copy specific aspects of post-incunabula in the same way incunabula are catalogued in the Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database: other projects and libraries are now planning to use it.
1. the Agreement EDIT16-BL: for the first time EDIT16, the Italian National database of all books printed in Italy between 1501-1600, was officially opened to a foreign library, the BL. Now more than 8,945 BL books are searchable in EDIT16 and, of these, more than 800 are unique copies.
2. Contributions to EDIT16: around 500 bibliographical entries; around 800 images of editions; circa 170 links to digital copies.
3. The creation of the PATRIMONiT database, a fundamental research tool for the material, historical and bibliographical study of popular books and for tracing the copies of Italian books abroad.
4. The opening of HPB to the general public. The HPB is now freely available from hpb.cerl.org (January 2018).
5. Material characteristics of popular books: the research has scientifically proved for the first time that popular books were printed on low quality paper and cheaply.
7. The results of the in-depth and systematical analysis of archival material are visible in the records described in PATRIMONiT and fully accessible to everyone. The monograph ‘From Cheap Print to Rare Ephemera: 16th-Century Italian 'Popular' Books at the British Library’ (provisional title) containing these results has been drafted and the applicant will continue to work in order to publish it soon. Partial results have been disseminated over the two years through conferences, talks and seminars.
8. the testing of a new methodology to study book history was discussed by expert scholars in book history in the international conference “New sources for Book History. The Combined Methodological Approach for Manuscript and Printed Books”, organized by the applicant in collaboration with CERL and the BL (British Library, 28 November 2017).
PATRIMONiT was a successful pilot for finding a model to catalogue the copy specific aspects of post-incunabula in the same way incunabula are catalogued in the Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database: other projects and libraries are now planning to use it.