Colori online
The miniatures data bank
Ricc. 2669
The project and its goals
The main goal of this project is to promote knowledge of the many precious manuscripts owned by the Biblioteca Riccardiana. To this purpose, our intent is to make them available to as wide and diversified of an audience as possible, by providing a user friendly tool that facilitates many different kinds of research (either by experts and non-experts) while sharing good quality images.
The project also aims at offering a database which can be accessed remotely (not only on site). Also, this system will help to maintain and preserve the library’s book collections by making it possible to see all of their miniatures online.
Methods and procedures
In 1958 Maria Luisa Scuricini Greco published a study on this library’s illuminated manuscripts titled Miniature riccardiane. After a pretty accurate scrutiny, she offered a short description of the miniatures. However, her attributions and scholarly remarks on them were not always correct. This made a revision of her work necessary, which would rely on more recent studies and (above all) would provide a more precise, modern, and efficient tool for research. The electronic format was thus chosen to allow for a fast, user friendly, and flexible tool that can be updated constantly.
There are 325 illuminated manuscripts in this library (almost ten percent of the total number). During the digitalization process, all of the miniatures featuring figures and narratives have been reproduced. For illuminated initials, instead, only the most significant specimens (divided by typological categories) have been selected. In doing so, the most common methods for describing illuminated manuscripts have been followed. This led to making an archive of images that can be connected to the database used for cataloguing the library’s collections. An ordinary software can thus guarantee fast and easy access to the data, allowing users to do their research according to subject, author, artist, and – above all – keywords.
In creating fields on this webpage, which we have tried to make as simple as possible, we have taken into account our users’ many and most important needs. We have thus done our best to provide a considerable number of precise data while ensuring the highest speed possible.
For miscellaneous manuscripts a “window” has been created where users can type the author’s name, the title of each work in that anthology, and the related folios. Connection to that link is automatic. It is thus always possible to check how a word relates to any given image.
How our database is structured
The structure of our database is very simple, as it is based on clear parameters and keywords that make access truly easy. The advantage of an electronic support is obvious. For one thing, users can ask questions immediately, even if our webpage is not finalized yet, as it could always be updated at a later stage. The first fields are meant to identify the manuscript. This section of the webpage is organized in a discursive format so as to contain all data that may be considered useful information on any given miniature; for this reason, codicological and paleographic pieces of information are kept to a minimum. The description window defines the type of miniature being studied, also by adding further details. Particular attention has been paid to the string of words used to create the database. In this procedure, all the terms necessary to properly describe a miniature have been preserved; only minor elements pertaining to grammar and syntax have been eliminated.
Please read before visiting this website: Like all databases, this too is a “work in progress”, which will be ameliorated at a later stage. It may thus happen that some pieces of information are not precise. We will be grateful to all users who wish to share their corrections with us.
WARNING
This database is currently being updated.