American students have revealed, thanks to an imaging system based on ultraviolet rays, a text hidden in a manuscript dating from the 15th century.
Using ultraviolet fluorescence imaging, RIT students revealed that a 15th century manuscript sheet held in the Cary Graphic Arts Collection was actually a palimpsest, a parchment manuscript with multiple layers of writing. The image on the left shows the document as it appears in visible light, while the image on the right was produced by the imaging system built by the students.
Writing on paper has not always been easy because the manufacture of a parchment was expensive, hence the discovery today of palimpsests, parchments whose first writing has been scraped off to allow reuse of the support. While these texts are now invisible to the naked eye, "the chemical signature of the initial writing can sometimes be detected using other areas of the light spectrum ", recalls the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Students of this establishment have ingeniously managed to discover such texts hidden in a medieval manuscript.
Hidden cursive writing in French
It was in the first year that a group of 19 American students developed an imaging system using ultraviolet rays. Applying it to a page of a 15th century manuscript housed in the institute's Cary Graphic Arts Collection revealed the presence of a palimpsest. "Using our system we borrowed several scrolls from the Cary collection here at RIT and when we put one of them under UV light it showed this amazing dark French cursive writing underneath “Remarks in a press release one of the students, Zoë LaLena. Revealing the text is not enough. The image must then be processed to increase its readability and for the moment, the RIT has not revealed the content of the text. updated text.
Other palimpsests soon to be revealed?
Another library, the Edge collection, has 30 pages of this same manuscript. "It's really exciting to think that 29 other pages whose location we know can also be palimpsests “, continues the American student. The students have also photographed another sheet of this collection located in a public library. It also revealed a hidden text. It is by collecting enough extracts that the students, helped historians, will be able to better understand this writing erased centuries ago. In the meantime, they will be able to go and present their results at the International Congress on Medieval Studies to be held in 2021.