Turning the pages of a medieval manuscript is akin to opening a casket that conserves a mysterious treasure. After so many years, the emotions it arouses are still the same: amazement, wonder, curiosity and an irrepressible desire to understand what is written there, while we attempt to imagine the person who, centuries before, bent over this same page, writing or drawing.
Understanding and interpreting ancient writings is an exciting and extremely taxing work: several years of university studies and much practice are necessary to develop this skill. It is entirely due to our collaboration with professional figures highly experienced in the palaeographical and historical field that we are able to offer scholars and researchers the service of the transcription of manuscripts from the medieval and modern age.
After completing the transcription – including writing out abbreviations in full and inserting punctuation – our Latinists can subsequently translate the text from Latin to Italian or another language.
Other services
In the case of extracts, fragments or simply texts about which the clients wishes to have further information on the provenance, date or authenticity, we can draw on the skills of experts and professional figures in the field of cultural assets, as well as experts in the analysis of writings and falsified documents enrolled in the national court register. These latter can provide expert opinions, analyses and tests using sophisticated tools such as the digital microscope and ultraviolet rays with different wavelengths.
If a client does not require the transcription of the entire text – which may be a lengthy and exacting work – our transcribers can summarize the content of the document, drawing up a brief abstract, or researching specific information contained therein. For our thematic research and abstracting service, please see our dedicated page.
Some transcription projects performed by Galactus
The transcription of several medieval bestiaries is among the projects that our palaeographers have carried out with particular enthusiasm. These texts are fascinating for the way in which reality and imagination mingle to describe creatures belonging more to the fantastic world than to the real one. Many animals could not be observed easily in those days – marine ones especially – and human imagination allowed itself free reign when describing their physical features, their habits and the symbolic and religious meanings attached to them. The behaviour of the various species was often presented as an example – positive or negative – with which to teach a moral, praise a virtue or condemn an attitude unseemly to the eyes of God.
The images appearing before the transcriber are miniatures of surprising beauty.
There are serpents of different colours, some are black and some are speckled. The coloured ones are not mortal…
…there is no remedy against their poison because, when they bite any tree, it immediately loses its fruit….
Extract from the transcription of “draghi e serpenti [Dragons and Serpents]” from “ Bestiario e Fiore de Virtù [Bestiary and Flowers of Virtue]”, a manuscript in merchant script from the mid-15th century, conserved in the Wellcome Collection of London.
Detail of the Church of Santa Maria dei Servi , Padua
Summary of a dispute over family tombs
The wife of Pietro Savioli, Tina Faruncella, ordered the construction of a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the center of the Church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Padua. The chapel contained the Savioli family tombs, but the family emblem got accidentally broken. It was subsequently used for the church paving, creating confusion over the ownership of the tomb. Several people not belonging to the family were mistakenly buried there.
This inadvertent hostile possession of the tomb provoked a long dispute that was resolved only by a transfer agreement: ownership of the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin was exchanged for that of the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, which then became the new tomb of the Savioli family. Galactus Traduzioni transcribed and translated from Latin the summary of the events and the contract signed in presence of the “Most Reverend Signor Maestro Antonio da Bologna, General Prior of the same Order and of the Congregation of the Friars.” (translated from Latin by G. Russo)
Complex transcription
The transcription of the text of this fine parchment was extremely difficult. The document concerns Melchiorre Manfredini (Rovigo 1661-1739), Archpriest of the Collegiate Church of St. Stephen Protomartyr, entitled St. Damian.
Our client provided a first draft which our collaborator completed, having succeeded in deciphering the words that the client had considered illegible. To the great satisfaction of all concerned.
Aloysius Mocenigus Dei gratia dux Venetiarum universis et singulis, tam | amicis quam fidelibus, has nostras inspecturis significamus Aloysium Cavertini qui | sub die 3a iunii rogavit procuratorem Lauretane Marangoni messer | Melchiorem Mampherdini ad agendum esse hominem bone opinionis et fa|me, cuius scripti hic et ubique plena fides est adhibenda. Datum in nostro ducali palatio die II augusti, indictione XIVa, 1706.
Transcription by G. Russo.
Parchment, 1706
