Legal Digital Scriptorium – Portugal

https://iusilluminata.fcsh.unl.pt/legal-digital-scriptorium-portugal/

This online image database of digitized illuminated legal manuscripts preserved in Portuguese libraries is edited by Maria Alessandra Bilotta (IEM-NOVA/FCSH) within the research project “ManJurEurIt. Manuscritos Jurídicos Europeus Itinerantes” (financed by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., within the scope of the execution of the program contract provided for in numbers 4, 5 and 6 of art. 23 of D.L. No. 57/2016, of 29 August, amended by Law No. 57/2017, of 19 July). The project aims to make easily accessible to scholars in a single list the census of the digitization of legal manuscripts collections, dating back to the Middle Ages and the Humanistic period, preserved in Portuguese libraries.
Therefore, the legal manuscripts gathered in this database are preserved in Portuguese territory and have been digitized over the past few years by the institutions in which they are stored.
Many of the "Alcobacenses" and "Iluminados" legal illuminated manuscripts, preserved in the National Library of Portugal (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal), were digitized on the occasion of the exhibition “The Circulation of Law in Medieval Europe. European Legal Manuscripts in Portuguese Libraries” (Lisbon, National Library of Portugal, Museum of the Book, 26 February – 31 May 2016), curated by Maria Alessandra Bilotta (IEM-NOVA/FCSH).
The list enumerates the illuminated manuscripts following their current place of conservation, therefore they are enumerated according to the institution and the collection to which they belong. The manuscripts reviewed in the database were not all produced in Portugal, some come from other European territories. The list is not complete but concerns only those illuminated manuscripts that have been digitized by the institutions to which they belong. The database will be progressively updated.

Partners

Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM) – NOVA/FCSH
Instituto Português de Heráldica (IPH)

Project Team

Maria Alessandra Bilotta (IEM-NOVA/FCSH)
Gianluca Del Monaco – Università di Bologna
Jorge Prádanos Fernández – Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Rosa M. Rodríguez Porto – Universidade de Santiago de Compostela – University of Southern Denmark
Jaime Moraleda – Facultad de Humanidades de Toledo, Universidad de Castilla- La Mancha
Jorge Jiménez López – Universidad de Zaragoza

Funders

Research project “ManJurEurIt. Manuscritos Jurídicos Europeus Itinerantes” (financed by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P.