Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Roger Pearse · 03-31-2010, 08:12 AM

The announcement is here.

Quote:

The digitization of 80,000 manuscripts of the Vatican Library, it should be realized, is not a light-hearted project. Even with only a rough calculation one can foresee the need to reproduce 40 million pages with a mountain of computer data, to the order of 45 petabytes (that is, 45 million billion bytes). This obviously means pages variously written and illustrated or annotated, to be photographed with the highest definition, to include the greatest amount of data and avoid having to repeat the immense undertaking in the future.

...

This project may be achieved over a span of 10 years divided into three phases, with possible intervals between them. In a preliminary phase the involvement of 60 people is planned, including photographers and conservator-verifiers, in the second and third phases at least 120. Before being able to initiate an undertaking of this kind, which is causing some anxiety to those in charge of the library (and not only to them!), naturally it will be necessary to find the funds. Moves have already been made in this direction with some positive results.

dog-on · 03-31-2010, 08:25 AM

Wow!

ApostateAbe · 03-31-2010, 08:54 AM

I hope these documents will be accessible on the Internet. If so, it will mean that anyone can become a historical scholar of religion and a textual critic. What an enormous service.

DCHindley · 03-31-2010, 10:04 AM

Of course, the vast bulk of them will be in ecclesiastical ("church") Latin.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I hope these documents will be accessible on the Internet. If so, it will mean that anyone can become a historical scholar of religion and a textual critic. What an enormous service.

Tom Sawyer · 03-31-2010, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Of course, the vast bulk of them will be in ecclesiastical ("church") Latin.

Well, the good thing about that is that it will allow everybody to badly translate sections of them in an out of context manner, so they'll be able to use these manuscripts to be able to accuse the Church of all sorts of things they're not involved in and tie their lawyers up dealing with that to such an extent that they'll be less able to cover up pedophilia investigations.

Toto · 03-31-2010, 10:47 AM

This might spur the development of better machine translation from Latin to a modern language.

Godless Raven · 03-31-2010, 10:53 AM

Just wait til the first of them to use digital software realized how easy it is to add to those documents now! If only the original forgers could have had such technology!

So now they will show us all the texts with obvious insertions, but now they will look flawless. They can add whatever they want and take out whatever they want if they hire the right experts.

Hmmm...I wonder if that is why they now feel comfortable showing people their "evidence".

Roger Pearse · 03-31-2010, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I hope these documents will be accessible on the Internet. If so, it will mean that anyone can become a historical scholar of religion and a textual critic. What an enormous service.

I hope so too. In fact I think it is inevitable, although I don't know whether that is envisaged yet.

The announcement is incredibly important, because the great collections of the world have mostly fought against making copies of their books, preferring to see the supply of such reproductions as a revenue stream to be milked for all it is worth. The Bodleian library in Oxford is the current worst culprit known to me, demanding huge sums for deliberately degraded copies. But once the Vatican has done it, everyone will ask "why aren't we doing it" and it will snowball.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Godless Raven · 03-31-2010, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I hope these documents will be accessible on the Internet. If so, it will mean that anyone can become a historical scholar of religion and a textual critic. What an enormous service.

I hope so too. In fact I think it is inevitable, although I don't know whether that is envisaged yet.

The announcement is incredibly important, because the great collections of the world have mostly fought against making copies of their books, preferring to see the supply of such reproductions as a revenue stream to be milked for all it is worth. The Bodleian library in Oxford is the current worst culprit known to me, demanding huge sums for deliberately degraded copies. But once the Vatican has done it, everyone will ask "why aren't we doing it" and it will snowball.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

So Roger, you are under the impression that the Vatican will be offering access to this information for free? Maybe they will be top of the line copies, but I hope you aren't under the impression that it's not going to cost an arm and a leg to anyone that wants to view it.

If I'm right, you could still be right in that it could snowball and top literary collectors may make their collections available digitally online....for a very high price.

Since when has the Vatican turned up an opportunity to milk their sheeple for more money when it was presented? :huh:

mountainman · 03-31-2010, 04:24 PM

I hope they find Constantine's Last Will and Testament.

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03-31-2010, 08:25 AM	#2
dog-on Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 3,397	Wow!

03-31-2010, 08:54 AM	#3
ApostateAbe Contributor Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: MT Posts: 10,656	I hope these documents will be accessible on the Internet. If so, it will mean that anyone can become a historical scholar of religion and a textual critic. What an enormous service.

03-31-2010, 10:47 AM	#6
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	This might spur the development of better machine translation from Latin to a modern language.

03-31-2010, 10:53 AM	#7
Godless Raven Contributor Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Cun City, Vulgaria Posts: 10,293	Just wait til the first of them to use digital software realized how easy it is to add to those documents now! If only the original forgers could have had such technology! So now they will show us all the texts with obvious insertions, but now they will look flawless. They can add whatever they want and take out whatever they want if they hire the right experts. Hmmm...I wonder if that is why they now feel comfortable showing people their "evidence".

03-31-2010, 04:24 PM	#10
mountainman Contributor Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Falls Creek, Oz. Posts: 11,192	I hope they find Constantine's Last Will and Testament.

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