Message-Id: <mailto:199510061400.JAA17861@library.wustl.edu> Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 14:36:44 +0100 From: Peter Kidd <mailto:pkidd@SAS.AC.UK> Subject: Italian Romanesque Paintings CD-ROM Projects To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
COMPUTERISED ACCESS TO THE GARRISON COLLECTION OF MATERIAL RELATING TO MEDIEVAL ITALIAN ROMANESQUE PANEL PAINTINGS AND MANUSCRIPTS[This notice is being cross-posted to more than one list; please excuse duplication. Although long, this is a relatively summary description; more info. will be sent to individuals on request: see the note at the end of this document]
Edward Garrison was the author of numerous articles on Italian painting, as well as two of the standard works on the subject: _Italian Romanesque Panel Painting: an Illustrated Index_ (Florence, 1949) _Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting_ (4 Vols., Florence, 1953-62)
The 'Garrison Collection' is his unique archive of about 20,000 photographs of Italian panel paintings, illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings and mosaics, covering the 6th to the 14th centuries; but with particular strengths in panels of the 13th-14th centuries, and manuscripts of the 11th-13th centuries. The photographs are supported by an extensive apparatus of offprints and photocopies of articles, filecard indexes, Garrison's voluminous notes and some correspondence, and a small but specialised library of reference books.
In 1962 Garrison 'retired' and sold the Collection to the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; but soon thereafter he decided to continue to work with the material he had laboured so hard to assemble, endeavouring to expand it and keep it up to date. Since his death in 1981 the Collection has remained available to students, but due to Garrison's highly personal filing system it has been difficult to use.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, the Conway Library at the Courtauld has now been able to undertake the re-organisation and computerisation of the Collection, in order to make it more widely available and easier to use.
In the past year we have been able to design and build a database containing all the text from Garrison's 1949 _Index_ of panel paintings, with a digitized thumbnail image of each object for quick reference, and all the new information and bibliography that we have been able to obtain. It is hoped that we will be able to include further images scanned at higher resolutions, and continue to supplement and update the text data. A similar project is well under way for the manuscripts. Visitors to the Courtauld are welcome to use the material while the projects are in progress.
It is planned to make the computerised material available as an affordable CD-ROM in due course; but before publication we intend to undertake extensive beta-testing, and are keen to invite readers of this document to comment upon what sorts of features they would hope to see included in such a CD-ROM, and what sorts of searching and sorting strategies they might want to be able to employ.
For a more thorough description of the project, please e-mail me directly -- not to the whole list -- stating whether you are interested in receiving more details about the Panels project, the Manuscripts, or both. It would be very useful if you would include your job title/occupation, and a brief comment about why you are interested in the project.
I look forward to your responses.
Peter Kidd mailto:pkidd@sas.ac.uk
The Garrison Collection Conway Library Courtauld Institute of Art Somerset House Strand London WC2R ORN UK
Telephone and Fax: +44 (0171) 873 2785