The project was divided into three sub-projects and comprised a total of 874 manuscripts. Prestigious collections currently dispersed between different EU member states were chosen to illustrate important events in the history of European politics, culture and art.

  • The Bibliotheca Carolina, for which a total of 425 masterpieces from the most important abbey and monastery schools of the Carolingian Empire (eighth and ninth centuries) were digitised. These included Reichenau, Saint-Denis, Corbie, Reims, Saint-Amand, Freising and Weißenburg (Wissembourg). The manuscripts provide excellent illustrations of spiritual and artistic activity in these centres of religious life. They also portray ecclesiastical and secular power and testify to the extensive exchange of texts and artistic models that took place. The texts and images digitised in the Europeana Regia project represent around 50 per cent of all the Carolingian manuscripts still held in Europe today. The Herzog August Bibliothek’s contribution to this project was to digitise 104 manuscripts
  • The Library of Charles V and Family, the most important royal collection of illuminated 14th-century manuscripts (not least on account of the many copies made of them), was a centre of aristocratic culture in France, England, Flanders and Burgundy. 167 manuscripts from this collection were digitised.
  • Library of the Aragonese Kings of Naples: This magnificent collection is a unique assemblage of masterpieces of French, Venetian, Neapolitan, Lombardian and Spanish book illumination. Straddling political boundaries, it symbolises the cultural unity of Europe. Under the auspices of this project 282 of its manuscripts were digitised.

 

Cooperation partners

 

Project portals

  • Europeana Regia (multilingual)
  • Europeana
  • Europeana Regia – Europeana
  • Europeana Regia – Bibliotheca Carolina
  • Europeana Regia – Library of Charles V and Family
  • Europeana Regia – Library of the Aragonese Kings of Naples
  • The European Library
  • Europeana Regia – The European Library
  • Virtual exhibition: Manuscripts and Princes – The European Library
  • Virtual exhibition: Royal Book Collections – Europeana

 

Funding: European Commission
Duration: 2010–2012
Project participants: Christian Heitzmann (project lead), Marcus Baumgarten (team member), Stefanie Gehrke (team member), Torsten Schaßan (team member)