News

11 manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale have just been added to the digital library. A Rose in the University of Manchester's John Rylands University Library and one at the University of Pennsylvania are now up as well. We are in the process of cropping images and adding scholarly content. There are new codicological descriptions of two manuscripts, Penn 906 and Walters 143, and more to come. We are also improving the French language site by offering new translations of pages, and would appreciate feedback on these or on any aspect of the project.

This gives us a total of 26 manuscripts and 2 early printed books digitized so far. Check back as we continue to add manuscripts through 2009!

Extant manuscripts

Currently, no one can say with certainty exactly how many Rose manuscripts exist or where they are located, and thus we are working to create such a list. A number of factors make this a difficult task: manuscripts change names and hands over time; manuscripts are lost, destroyed, or stolen; manuscripts sometimes appear briefly on the market and are sold to anonymous owners; fragments exist in libraries around the world, and some of these have never been mentioned in publications; sometimes it is hard to know what to count as a Rose manuscript (there are, e.g., early translations into other languages, manuscripts containing only excerpts from the Rose, and copies of a prose version of the Rose). 

With the help of users of the digital library our list of manuscripts is being corrected and expanded. We would particularly like to thank Heidrun Ost for sending us changes. If you know of a Rose manuscript or fragment not given here, e-mail Prof. Timothy Stinson at tlstinson@gmail.com, and it will be added to the list.

Usage statistics (January 2009)

For the first four months of the Roman de la Rose Digital Library (through December 31, 2008), we have noted the following usage statistics:

• 5,373 visits from 89 different countries or territories
• The top five countries represented (in order): United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Canada
  
• 4,108 absolute unique visitors
• 24% of these visitors have returned to the site
• 124 of these visitors have used the site 9-14 times
• 52 of these visitors have used the site 15-25 times
• 268 of these visits lasted between 10-30 minutes
• 36 of these visits lasted over 30 minutes

We have received the images for 11 new manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale de France system which will be added soon to the Digital Library.

Site update

• Display table with basic information above codicological description.
• New "Extant manuscripts" page uses an embedded google spreadsheet to display a corpus of Rose manuscripts being produced by Prof. Timothy Stinson.
• BnF fr. 12595 has a codicological description.
  

Site update

The site now includes a Rose manuscript from the 14th century known as Bodmer 79. These digital images of Bodmer 79 were taken from color slides. Also, along with other small updates, users are now able to read the illustration title and a brief description of each illustration to the right of images in the page turner. These searchable descriptions name the characters depicted, costumes and objects in the scene, and elements of landscape and architecture. To view them choose “illustration description” in the drop down menu above the image. This menu also gives you the option of seeing the images alone (“show”), images with a transcription when there is one (“transcription”), and images with a transcription giving line numbers from Félix Lecoy's edition of the Rose (“transcription [Lecoy]”).

Usage statistics (December 2008)

Following the first three months of the Roman de la Rose Digital Library, we have noted the following usage statistics through November 30, 2008:

• 4,299 visits from 83 different countries or territories
• The top five countries represented (in order): United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Canada
  
• 3,313 absolute unique visitors
• 23% of these visitors have returned to the site
• 95 of these visitors have used the site 9-14 times
• 45 of these visitors have used the site 15-25 times
• 215 of these visits lasted between 10-30 minutes
• 26 of these visits lasted over 30 minutes

We have launched a survey of individuals who requested passwords for the previous Roman de la Rose website. The results of this survey will help us determine the best strategy for establishing the Roman de la Rose membership community that will help sustain the Digital Library.

If you wish to complete the survey, we have placed a link to the survey on the main page of the Roman de la Rose Digital Library.

Reuniting UC 1380 with UC 392

In 1907, the French translation of a 13th-century Latin text, Le Jeu des échecs moralisé (The Moralized Game of Chess), which accompanied a 14th-century Parisian copy of the Roman de la Rose, was separated from the poem and bound into a second volume. The Roman de la Rose text (including Le Testament and Codicille of the author Jean de Meun), was also given a new binding of red leather at this time. The volume of Le Jeu des échecs moralisé, with 39 folios and 13 miniatures, was purchased by the University of Chicago in 1931 and is now University of Chicago Library MS 392. In 2007, the University of Chicago Library was able to reunite the two works with their purchase of the Roman de la Rose volume, which has 171 folios and 42 miniatures and is now University of Chicago Library MS 1380 (or UC 1380). Both texts appear to have been written by the same hand, and the miniatures of Le Jeu des échecs moralisé and the Roman de la Rose seem to be the work of a single illuminator. (This artist has been called the Master of Saint Voult and linked to illuminators working for Charles V.) Images of the copy of Le Jeu des échecs moralisé can be viewed at the University of Chicago Library’s Rose & Chess
site, while the Roman de la Rose is part of this Digital Library. With these digital surrogates, we can see how a 14th-century artist illuminated two different secular texts, and compare the illustrations of courtly love in UC 1380 to those of an ideal society in UC 392.