THE VATICAN first dipped its toes in the digital ocean when it joined Twitter and soon it will be taking the plunge by providing the content of its entire library online.
More than 40 million pages of Vatican records will be preserved in digital format, including 80,000 historic manuscripts and 8,900 rare "incunabula", early form books published prior to 1501.
Other documents that will be made available online include: The Sifra, a Hebrew manuscript written between the end of the 9th Century and the middle of the 10th, one of the oldest Hebrew codes in existence. Greek testimonies of the works of Homer, Sophocles, Plato and Hippocrates will also be digitised along with the famous incunabulum of Pius II's De Europa, printed by Albrecht Kunne in Memmingen in around 1491. The Vatican will also be digitising a document known as "The Code-B" which is one of the oldest existing manuscripts of the Greek Bible which is believed to have been written in the 4th Century.
Alas even silver bullets and stakes through heart never rid the world of conspiricists, but this part especially should make life a tad more diffy for them.
So it's understandable that this is kind of a big deal and a huge step forward for The Vatican.
Timothy Janz, scriptor gracius for The Vatican said in a documentary last year that people often incorrectly think the Vatican library is where secrets are stored.
"The point of the library was the exact opposite," he said. "It was to make information accessible."
Timothy Janz, scriptor gracius for The Vatican said in a documentary last year that people often incorrectly think the Vatican library is where secrets are stored.
"The point of the library was the exact opposite," he said. "It was to make information accessible."
On the other hand, having the entire Vatican archive at their disposal will simply provide conspiricists with more food for fervid thought. It also should make it easier to refute them, though.
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