#coffee with a codex cwac

[upennmanuscripts]

For today's #CoffeeWithACodex we looked at this late 15th century Italian Missal and golly, I like these historiated initials a lot.

(Ms. Codex 2076)

[leoba]

Manuscripts, Humanity, and AI

Image of a manuscript, generated in MidJourney by Suzette van Haaren

(a few words originally posted on Twitter on March 27, 2023 and then on my blog. It’s resonating there so I thought I would post it here too.)

I’ve been trying all morning to figure out what bothers me about these Mid journey-generated manuscripts without simply sounding like a Luddite, and I think I finally have it.

It’s because my interest in manuscripts is almost entirely about the humanity behind them. Who made them? Who used them and why? What happened to them after they were made? Where are they now? What did they mean in the past and what do they mean now?

A computer generated book doesn’t have any of that context. I’ve talked about the uncanny valley with regard to digitized manuscripts, and this is that, one step further. It’s one thing to digitize a manuscript in a way that elides its materiality, and a whole other thing to create manuscripts that don’t exist materially at all.

I think there are potentially interesting ways to use AI in my work. I’m interested in structure, and have been part of a project, VisColl, to develop models and software to build models of manuscripts. Could AI be used to combine structural models and digital images to create photorealistic imagery of existing manuscripts? Imagine an AI reconstruction of manuscripts cut apart and distributed by Otto Ege. Could it even generate pages that are lost as semi-realistic placeholders?

Just a few thoughts. I’m less interested in generating realistic looking manuscripts than in the potential to leverage the technology to help us understand the use and history of manuscripts that exist in the real world.

Added: If you’d like to hear me talk more about manuscripts and humanity, check out Coffee With A Codex, a weekly 30-minute program both live and posted to YouTube where I present a show-and-tell with books from the University of Pennsylvania’s premodern manuscript collections, and Inside My Favorite Manuscript, a weekly podcast I do in my own time where I talk to people who love manuscripts about manuscripts they love the most.

[upennmanuscripts]

Back in December, 2022, for #CoffeeWithACodex we brought out Ms. Roll 1066 - all 36 feet of it! This is a genealogical chronicle of the kings of England to Edward IV, written in England circa 1461. You can watch the full video on YouTube, and join when we start #CWAC again in September!

Full video:

[upennmanuscripts]

Way back in February, 2023, we took a look at LJS 443, a 15th century Armenian collection of texts on the calendar. From the highlight reel you'll see it's chock full of diagrams and tables, and includes a few pretty colorful headings, too. You can watch the full 30-minute video at the link below, and if you're interested in joining #CoffeeWithACodex in real time check out the schedule and details on our website: https://www.library.upenn.edu/events/coffee-codex

🔗:

[upennmanuscripts]

For #CoffeeWithACodex on February 27, curator Dot Porter will bring out Ms. Codex 1329, a 13th-century copy of Haimo's 9th-century commentary on the Song of Solomon, with an unusual layout presenting the biblical lemmata in the margins enclosed in decorated circles and triangles.

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Register here:

[upennmanuscripts]

Two of the most popular, frequently copied and translated astronomical texts of the Middle Ages were Joannes de Sacro Bosco's Sphaera mundi and Georg von Peurbach's Theoricae novae planetarum. On September 19, Curator Dot Porter will bring out LJS 42, a 16th century commentary on a Hebrew translation of Sphaera mundi, followed by a commentary on a Hebrew translation of Theoricae novae planetarum.

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Register 🔗 :

[upennmanuscripts]

April 24 is the annual "Bring Our Children to Work Day" at Penn, and for #CoffeeWithACodex Curator Dot Porter will be joined by her son Andrew. He's keen on astronomy, so they'll bring out three of our early astronomy texts: LJS 26, a 13th century Italian copy of Sacrobosco's Tractatum de sphaera; LJS 216, a 13th century French copy of the same text; and LJS 384, a 12th century German copy of De philosophia mundi by William of Conches.

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Register here:

[upennmanuscripts]

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. If you miss an event, no fear! CWAC is recorded and posted to our YouTube channel. Check it out and see what you've been missing!

Here's a clip from the CWAC with four copies of Secretum secretorum, in Arabic and Latin. Secretum secretorum is a popular treatise presented as a letter from Aristotle to Alexander the Great on statecraft, astronomy, astrology, magic, and medicine. Two of our copies are in Arabic, dating from the 12th and 14th century, and the other two are 15th century copies from Germany. The one in the clip is LJS 459.

🔗 watch the full 30-minute video: https://bit.ly/3SRafbc

🔗 find out more about CWAC: https://bit.ly/3zsqip2

[upennmanuscripts]

For #CoffeeWithACodex on January 23, we'll be joined by friend of CWAC Louis Meiselman, Judaica Special Collections Cataloging Librarian. He'll introduce us to CAJS Rar Ms 375, a 13th century copy of a Biblical lexicon in Hebrew.

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

[upennmanuscripts]

#CoffeeWithACodex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

On July 11, Curator Dot Porter will bring out Ms. Codex 434, an anonymous translation of the Golden Legend different from translation used in early printed editions. Written in Italy in 1459.

Register here:

[upennmanuscripts]

On October 24, Curator Dot Porter will bring out LJS 387, an illuminated 14th or 15th century copy of al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ, a dictionary of the Arabic language originally compiled between 1368 and 1392.

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Register at the link above!

[upennmanuscripts]

A highlight reel from our field trip to the University of Leeds! Along with curator Rhiannon Lawrence-Francis, Dot took at look at Brotherton Collection MS 2, a gorgeously illuminated Breviary offices, Psalter and Hours, written in Paris in the mid-15th century.

Watch the full 30-minute video on YouTube:

[upennmanuscripts]

For #CoffeeWithACodex on March 6, Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts Nicholas Herman will bring out Ms. Codex 2053, a 15th century portable Missal made in Italy.

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Register here:

[upennmanuscripts]

More information tbd, but on Thursday, September 26 at noon EST, Louis Meiselman, Judaica Special Collections Cataloging Librarian, will present on a new acquisition: a ritual dagger.

#CoffeeWithACodex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Register here 🔗:

[upennmanuscripts]

#CoffeeWithACodex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

On July 18, PhD candidate in Italian Studies and Comparative Literature Julia Pelosi-Thorpe will bring out Ms. Codex 2136, a miniature book of hours on parchment for the Use of Rome, made in northern Italy in the second half of the 15th century.

Register here:

[upennmanuscripts]

For this week's #CoffeeWithACodex (Thursday, March 21, 12pm Noon EST on Zoom) Curator Dot Porter will be joined by SIMS Curator of Manuscripts Nick Herman and Penn PhD student in Italian Studies and Comparative Literature Julia Pelosi-Thorpe to unbox a new manuscript purchase! Petrarch's Canzoniere and Trionfi, with Leonardo Bruni's Life of Petrarch. Written in Florence in the 1470s. You'll get to see it for the first time at the same time we do!

Register here: