Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna

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Reuse fragments

Among the archival funds of the Archivio Generale Arcivescovile, where medieval and modern documents are preserved, it is possible to run across registers and folders where reuse fragments could be found.

With the term ‘reuse fragments’ are indicated those leaves, cuttings or folia, generally made of parchment, coming from ancient manuscripts that, for some reasons, have been discarded (the most common reasons are the wear of the manuscript, graphical mutations, liturgical and musical reforms and, finally, the introduction of mechanical movable-type printing press) and then reused as poor binding material.

The study of reuse fragments can disclose previously unknown texts, or almost unknown. It can allow the rediscovery of illuminations or inedited documents. For these reasons, in the last years, an increasing number of scientists and researchers have focused their studies on this kind of sources, directing their glance not only to the study of a single fragment found in an archive, but even to entire corpora of parchment leaves, with the aim to recreate portions of manuscripts starting from these small surviving fragments, or even lost medieval and modern libraries. The Archivio Generale Arcivescovile counts thousands of fragments, often still in situ, or rather not even detached – thus not even restored – from their reuse location. Up to now, a complete and exhaustive mapping of those fragments has not been done, but it is possible to find few publications, such as some Jewish fragments published by Mauro Perani and Saverio Campanini [(Perani M., Campanini S., I frammenti ebraici di Bologna: Archivio di Stato e collezioni minori: inventario e catalogo (Firenze: Olschki, 1997)].

Esempio di frammento di riuso

An example of a reuse fragment. It is a bifolium of parchment reused as a cover in the marriage register for the years 1566-1683 of the parish of S. Cecilia in Bologna (AAB, Parrocchie Soppresse della Città, 6 / 1.1). The fragment comes from a 12th century homiliary.

The attention of researchers addressed to this type of manuscript allowed the beginning of a collaboration between the Archivio Generale Arcivescovile and the Center of research RAM (Ricerche e Analisi Manoscritti) of the University of Bologna. This cooperation is directed to the development of a systematic census program, and to the cataloguing and valorization of the Archive’s fragments. The project, named “Catalogazione, studio e valorizzazione delle pergamene di riuso conservato presso l’Archivio Arcivescovile di Bologna”, was started in 2019, but already in 2005 some internships and thesis were begun. At this stage, actually 9 archive collections’ census have been completed, and approx. 480 parchment fragments have appeared; most of them comes from medieval liturgical manuscripts, but even literary, philosophical, medical, documentary fragments have been found, covering a period from XI to XVIII century. The goal of this project is to complete, in the next years, a mapping of the patrimony of the reuse fragments of the Archivio Arcivescovile. More precisely, the PhD project of Roberta Napoletano named “Sopravvivenze d’inchiostro. Catalogo dei frammenti manoscritti di riuso dell’Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna. Parrocchie Soppresse della Città” (Paleografia Latina – Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica, Università di Bologna) is coming to an end. This project allows the digital online cataloguing of some fragments preserved in the Archive, on the most recent and important database of manuscript fragments in the international research panorama: Fragmentarium.

The fragments already published in Fragmentarium, preserved in the archival funds Parrocchie Soppresse della Città and from Raccolta Breventani, are reported here:

Bibliographical references

Degni Paola, “Frammenti greci a Bologna”, in Frammenti di un discorso storico. Per una grammatica dell’aldilà del frammento, a cura di Caterina Tristano, Spoleto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2019, pp. 511-524.
Napoletano Roberta, “Un frammento di Boccaccio tra i registri parrocchiali”, in Intorno a Boccaccio. Boccaccio e dintorni 2018, a cura di Stefano Zamponi, Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2020, pp. 205-216.
Napoletano Roberta, “Frammenti membranacei di riuso: metodologie e prospettive di ricerca. Il caso dell’Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna”, in IV Ciclo di Studi Medievali. Atti del Convegno (Firenze 4-5 Giugno 2018), Monza: EBS Print, 2018, pp. 239-246.
Napoletano Roberta, “L’Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna e i frammenti manoscritti di Mons. Luigi Breventani”, Teca 1, 10 (2020), pp. 87-99. doi: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2240-3604/11682
Perani Mauro, Campanini Saverio, I frammenti ebraici di Bologna: Archivio di Stato e collezioni minori: inventario e catalogo, Firenze: Olschki, 1997.
Solidoro Cristina, “Il reimpiego di manoscritti medievali in legature”, Gazette du livre médiéval 64, (2018), pp. 33-61.

Archive’s catalogue

The Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna (generally abbreviated as AAB) is the main repository of the Archbishop of Bologna and contains documentation from the Middle Ages to modern times.

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archivio@chiesadibologna.it