500x500xBAV

For 500 years, the Vatican Library has pursued its central mission: collecting, preserving, and restoring its treasures – books and documents – and making them available to everyone. It holds some of the oldest and most sacred texts, including notes by artists and scientists such as Michelangelo and Galileo, as well as treaties from every historical era.

Preserving these works and providing access to them is a complex task: ancient books naturally deteriorate over time, and the risk of damage continues to grow. The Vatican has made it clear that providing scholars from around the world with open access to its collections is a commitment it will never abandon.

The Vatican Library decided to digitise 500 irreplaceable documents of immense historical value and keep them safe and accessible to future generations for 500 years.

I have already written about the challenges that must be addressed when trying to preserve information for several centuries:

• Striking a balance between digital and analogue forms of information
• Physically preserving the storage medium
• Ensuring that information remains readable from the medium, and that the necessary software remains available, hundreds of years from now

A reliable, long-term solution was needed – one capable of preserving these works for centuries. The Vatican Library found one.

As a pilot project, the library decided to preserve Dante Alighieri’s priceless and renowned book, the “Divine Comedy” (pictured).

Following the pilot’s success, the main phase was launched: preserving 500 priceless manuscripts for 500 years – the 500x500xBAV project.

The manuscripts were selected by leading experts at the Vatican Library based on their historical and cultural value, as well as the risk of deterioration and permanent loss. The project includes preserving documents such as a text written by Luke the Evangelist and a handwritten version of the Quran.

To be continued…