Bibliotheca Cartusiana Moguntina – digital. Virtual Charterhouse Library Mainz

With the manuscripts from the Carthusian monastery in Mainz, founded in 1320, Heidelberg University Library, in cooperation with the Wissenschaftliche Stadtbibliothek Mainz, aims to make one of the largest preserved book collections of the Middle Ages accessible online. The approximately 850 volumes preserved in libraries in Mainz, London, Oxford and at least 16 other places form an ensemble rarely preserved in such completeness; it is made even more valuable by the fact that a late medieval and an early modern catalogue still exist for it. In the future, the Bibliotheca Cartusiana Moguntina - digital will thus not only offer a comprehensive insight into the history of the oldest charterhouse in the German-speaking world, but also into the spirituality and book culture of this extraordinary order of hermits.

Heidelberg University Library is digitising the codices and putting them online in accordance with the DFG specifications, as well as indexing data and the digital copies of the watermarks. Initially, the first 310 of the Carthusian manuscripts from the Mainz City Library are to be digitized by spring of 2023, followed in a second tranche by the remaining 314 manuscripts from Mainz as well as the stray holdings.

The digitisation is being carried out with funding from the DFG, while Heidelberg University Library is responsible for shipment and for the digitisation of the watermarks.