X-ray technique reveals hidden medieval pages
Researchers from Leiden and Delft have found a way to look inside early-modern bookbindings. An x-ray technique has allowed them to search for remains of medieval manuscripts hidden inside the bindings. After the Middle Ages many 17 recycled, their pages pasted inside bookbindings to provide support. Macro X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (MA-XRF) makes these pages readable without removing or damaging the bookbinding, providing access to a hidden medieval library.
Medieval News
Bookbindings
Bookbindings from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century hold hidden treasures. Book binders from this period cut up handwritten books from the Middle Ages because these had become old fashioned after the invention of printing. The dismembered manuscripts were used as binding material. Upon restoration the bindings reveal their innermost secrets – cut up leaves from medieval books. The manuscript fragments, which are stowaways from a distant past, are found in perhaps as many as one in five early-modern printed books.
Hidden treasure
Researchers Erik Kwakkel (Leiden University) and Joris Dik (Delft University of Technology) succeeded in looking through the covers of early-modern printed books in order to reveal the medieval pages inside (“Hidden Library” project). A leaf from a twelfth-century copy of Bede (d. 735) has been found, as well as a Dutch Book of Hours in the translation of Geert Grote, founder of the Devotio Moderna. The researchers were even able to digitally disassemble multiple pages that had been pasted on top of one another, making the text legible.
Technology
The researchers made use of Macro X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (MA-XRF) to visualize the hidden texts. Professor Dik’s team developed this technology a few year ago in collaboration with industrial, academic and museum partners. Originally, the method was designed to visualize hidden paint layers in old masters' paintings, but it proved equally