Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL)

EMEL pursued its core mission in projects that used scientific imaging technologies to recover illegible texts in ancient and medieval manuscripts. EMEL undertook two projects at libraries in Italy to use multispectral imaging to recover the erased layers of writing in palimpsest manuscripts. Palimpsests are manuscripts written on recycled parchment where an early layer of writing was erased so that the parchment could be reused to make a new manuscript. A technology called multispectral imaging has proven successful to recover erased texts from palimpsests.EMEL's first project in Italy in 2022 was at teh Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona, which is Europe's oldest library and holds important palimpsests. EMEL's project there recovered erased early copies of works by important classical authors including Euclid, Livy, and Virgil, and recognized for the first time an early copy of a commentary on the works of Plato by Apuleius. EMEL's project in Verona was the topic of a workshop for scholars and students at the Sorbonne University in Paris, and scholars are preparing to publish the newly discovered work by Apuleius for access by students, scholars, and the interested public.EMEL's second project in Italy was at the Ambrosiana Library in Milan. There EMEL rendered legible for the first time a previously unknown scientific treatise by Euclid and a newly discovered Latin translation of a Greek Christian spiritual text by Pseudo-Makarios. Scholars are preparing to publish both texts to support research and teaching.EMEL leaders successfully negotiated an agreement with the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos in Greece for a future project to use multispectral imaging to recover erased texts from its palimpsest manuscripts. These manuscripts are largely unstudied.EMEL continued to develop a cooperation with Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece, to develop future projects of mutual interest.EMEL continued its collaboration with the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) to publish an online digital library of manuscripts it digitized at St. Catherine's Monastery of the Sinai, Egypt, so that the images of the manuscripts are globally accessible free of charge.EMEL personnel participated in two conferences to communicate EMEL's work to a growing audience of scholars and interested members of the public.