Digitisation of the Bible

Malmesbury’s Bible was professionally digitised to allow universal access to researchers and to reduce the need for the delicate pages to be handled.

This project, instigated by Ron Bartholomew, was completed in August 2019 by Eugenio Falcioni of the British Library’s imaging team. 1,880 ultra-high-quality digital images (totalling some 345GB) of the Bible and its bindings now provide the means for worldwide scholarly study. The first copy appropriately went to a Belgian academic, given that the Bible was originally produced for the Carthusian monastery at Herne, near Brussels. We are considering how best to host the imagery for wider academic access. We are also considering how selected images could be displayed on-screen in the Abbey to complement and better explain the Bible to visitors. Those who saw the FoMA stall at the Malmesbury Community Day in February will have seen a glimpse of what will be possible.