Rare Biblical Texts From Bodleian and Vatican Libraries Digitized

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December 2, 2013,- The New York Times

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

Bodleian LibrariesDetail from a 13th-century Hebrew Bible.

A Gutenberg Bible, a dazzlingly illuminated 15th-century Hebrew Bible from Spain and a copy of Maimonides’s 12th-century commentary on the Mishnah written in the philosopher’s own hand are among the rare bibles and biblical commentaries from the Vatican Library and the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford that have been digitized and posted online, as part of a collaboration between the institutions that went live on Tuesday.

Those items will eventually be joined by more than 1.5 million other pages of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, 15th-century incunabula and early printed books, religious and secular, that will be made freely available in zoomable images over the next three years.

The digitization project, supported with a $3.2 million grant from the Polonsky Foundation, covers only a selection of the two libraries’ vast holdings of early material, but it represents an important step in opening the collections to researchers and ordinary people alike, Cesare Pasini, the Prefect of the Vatican Library, said in a statement.
“I see the common fruit of our labor as a very positive sign of collaboration and sharing that is a trademark of the world of culture,” Mr. Pasini said.