On 26th May 1944, an accidental bombing destroyed the municipal library of Chartres, severely damaging or completely destroying most of its collections. The once rich holding of 518 medieval manuscripts was reduced to fragments of various sizes and shapes. Since 2006, researchers from the Institute de Recherche et d’histoire des textes (CNRS) in Paris have been working to reconstruct the collection. Through a series of digitization campaigns, nearly all surviving fragments have been made accessible, while some appropriate restoration techniques and scientific photography have been tested to enhance their legibility. In the meantime, a painstaking work of identifying the burnt fragments, reuniting scattered leaves and restoring their order continues both in the ‘physical’ library in Chartres and online through the Arca platform.
The forthcoming talk will present the scope and challenges of the ambitious project, focussing on the practical methods developed for the identification and reorganization of the fragments. It will also show how the ongoing reconstruction work, along with a deepening understanding of the Chartres fragments, has led to important scholarly discoveries.
Joanna Fronska, PhD, is a member of the Section des manuscrits enluminés at the Institut de Recherche et d’histoire des Textes, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (since 2014). Her research interests include the iconography, production, and use of legal manuscripts and the history of libraries in the medieval and modern periods. Together with Claudia Rabel, she directs the long-term project “Rediscovering the Manuscripts from Chartres. Study and virtual revival of a damaged manuscript collection” and the new edition of the catalogue of medieval manuscripts from the Médiathèque l’Apostrophe de Chartres (forthcoming in the Catalogue Collectif de France, CCFr). Her current work focuses on the history of the cathedral chapter library of Chartres.
