Greek Manuscripts Digitisation Project

The British Library recently completed a pilot project to digitize 284 Greek Manuscripts and the high quality images are now freely available on the Library's web site.  Here is a clip from their announcement, which provides a bit more detail:

The Greek manuscripts contain unique and outstandingly rich information for researchers working on the literature, history, science, religion, philosophy and art of the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Classical and Byzantine periods.

The Greek manuscripts that have been digitised provide witnesses of the rich culture of the Greek-speaking peoples from the time of the Iliad and Odyssey throughout the Hellenistic, early Christian, Byzantine and Ottoman eras and beyond. They are fundamental to understanding of the Classical and Byzantine world.

Highlights include:

* The Theodore Psalter - Produced in Constantinople in 1066, this highly illustrated manuscript of the Psalms is arguably the most significant surviving manuscript illuminated in Constantinople...

* Illuminated Gospels -A late 12th century gospel book which is rare because of its integration of images of Christ's life into the Gospels. Whereas portraits of the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, became a traditional feature of copies of the Gospels in Greek, narrative images were much less frequently included...

* Dialogues of Lucian - This early 10th century manuscript is the oldest surviving manuscript of the works of second-century author Lucian...

* Babrius's fables - The discovery of this manuscript on Mount Athos in 1842 gave rise to the first edition of Babrius's fables in 1844 and this manuscript remains the principal source for this text. It contains 123 Aesopic fables and was corrected by the great Byzantine scholar, Demetrius Triclinius...

* Breviarium Historicum - A late 9th-century manuscript of the history of the Byzantine Empire from the death of the Emperor Maurice in 602 to 713, by Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople...


Read the full announcement
Visit The British Library Digitised Manuscripts site