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1. e-codices – 2019-2020
Since 2005 the goal of e-codices has been to provide free access to all medieval and a selection of modern manuscripts of Switzerland by means of a virtual library. With the update on 29 March 2019, the virtual library presents 2,214 documents from 88 different collections online. About 1650 codices date from before 1500. Thus about 23% of all medieval Swiss manuscripts in Latin script have been published online.
Over the next two years, our central concern will not be the content of e-codices, but rather its institutional establishment. Beginning in 2021, the Basel University Library will take over service operations; the University of Fribourg will stay on as co-leading house and will remain engaged in research, while also continuing to run the platform Fragmentarium.
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2. The Golden ratio: Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci
The Bibliothèque de Genève owns one of two surviving presentation copies of Luca Pacioli's De divina proportione. While the Biblioteca Ambrosiana's manuscript (Ms. 170 sup.) was given to Galeazzo da Sanseverino, the Geneva manuscript was presented to Ludovico Sforza (“il Moro”) in 1498.
The long-held opinion that the polyhedra at the end of the manuscript were drawn by Leonardo da Vinci is now considered less certain. Luca and Leonardo were indeed friends, worked at the same court at the same time, and pursued similar interests.
Even if Leonardo's influence cannot be denied, there is no direct evidence that the drawings were made by him. Currently the manuscript is on display as part of the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci. La scienza prima della scienza at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome (until 30 June 2019); from 24 October 2019 it will be shown at the Louvre as part of the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci.
Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. l.e. 210 – Luca Pacioli, De divina proportione
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3. Flora of the Ladies of Geneva
The Geneva Conservatory and Botanical Gardens holds the 13 volumes on Mexican flora that are known as the "Flore des Dames de Genève" (Flora of the Ladies of Geneva). This title recalls the extraordinary feat of reproduction that was performed at the behest of the scholar Auguste-Pyrame de Candolle by artists, students and teachers from Geneva's "Ecole de dessin" (drawing school), most of whom were women. Within only eight days, not fewer than 800 drawings were produced, before the valuable collection of botanical drawings of Mexican flora from Sessé, Moçiño und D. Cervantes' Spanish expedition of 1787-1803 had to be returned to Moçiño.
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