Notes from the Educational Programming Director - December 2009
If scholars possessing the requisite archival skills to become Medici Archive Project Fellows are not an endangered species, they are certainly rare birds. What can MAP do to ensure the future avail ability of Fellows and ensure that paleography and other archival skills do not become lost arts, especially when fewer and fewer non- Italian students can afford to stay in Italy long enough to acquire such know-how? MAP is addressing these issues with its “Online Course in Italian Paleography and Archival Studies,” a thirteen-week course that offers carefully guided practice in reading and interpret ing historical Italian manuscripts from ca. 1450 to 1700.
Since October 12th, on a daily basis, I have been teaching the art of paleography to twenty-seven participants from nine countries, all of whom are either doctoral students, or professors, curators, librarians, and researchers already holding a doctoral degree. As they work with digital images of archival documents, I am continuously available to answer the questions they post on open “discussion boards” and I regularly structure their learning with explanations of general pre cepts, historiographic issues, and points of interest. Helping me in this endeavor are Dr. Alessio Assonitis (who hand-picked the roster of original documents from several different archives), Dr. Elena Brizio (who assists in fielding student questions and preparing lessons) and Lorenzo Allori (the technological administrator).
So far, the more eye-opening class discussions have been about the complexities of dating letters in a period when Pisa, Florence, Venice, Rome, Spain, and England (just to give a few examples) all used different dating styles; the use of letters as “red herrings” in cases of political intrigue; and the self-fashioning of a Humanist scholar in a letter that the writer hoped would be published posthumously. The experience, intelligence, and application of the class’s participants render such discussions all the more interesting. I am delighted and honored to be in the role of the class instructor, especially when I consider that I am working with the very scholars who are most likely to become the next generation of MAP Fellows. What are the students getting out of the experience? What follows are excerpts from their reactions to the course after only one week:
“[…] I am having a really good time with this! I had always approached transcription as just a necessary tool to study and talk about the things which interest me, but so far I am really enjoying it in and of itself, even if I feel that I have a long LONG way to go.” N. Burden, Ph.D. Student, Kingston, Ontario
“As someone who is completely new to paleography, my initial thoughts are along the lines of how much I have learnt in just one week! Some people on the course clearly have much more experience with paleography (and Italian!) and I found their comments very helpful […] I’d also like to say how much I am enjoying this and I’m looking forward to the next documents!” N. Bell, Ph.D. student, Auckland, New Zealand
Sheila Barker, Educational Programming Director
