Back in the saddle ...

[lollardfish]

Today I went back to the Biblioteca Marciana where I feel much more at home than in the Archivio di Stato, having worked there for 4 weeks and 4 months in respective visits, albeit 6 and 5 years ago. This is the place where I wrote the first paragraph of my dissertation, this is the place where I figured out what my documents meant to my project, where I would storm out of the library and into San Marco to gaze at a mosaic and ponder. It’s a good place for me, and I’m excited to be back.

I warmed up with a little light reading on the mosaics of San Marco and gathering a few references for my paper I am (still!) finishing for the upcoming conference, then went into the manuscript room. I had a reference to a mss. From 1885 or so, but the numbering system has changed entirely. Once we figured out what numbering system it used to have, read a description of that document, found a book of corresponding numbers from the old system to the new system, I finally knew where my book was. I had an inventory of the mss. and was pretty excited, as there were some other translatio narratives which I hadn’t read yet, though I knew that they existed. This was going to be a gold mine.

Instead, I got a Gospel of St. Matthew, late, with the tiny glosses all around it. It took me a few minutes to skew my brain to read it and to trust the note in the front that told me I had the wrong book.

So instead we looked for a Greek .mss that seemed to be the right one, based on a note I had gotten from 1961 listing the contents. A 500-page Greek hagiographical codex showed up. Fortunately, I do read a little Greek, the TOC was in Latin, and I could be sure right away that this, took, was the wrong manuscript. So now I am panicked, because I believe that at some point … MY MANUSCRIPT WAS MISFILED! This does happen. The archivist was at a lost, but went to consult another librarian.

So I wait.

And wait.

And some bright minds confer.

And those bright minds figured out that I wrote 1890 instead of 1809 on my request form, in an entirely usual act of dyslexia for me (this is why I had trouble in math. Numbers liked to jump all over the place, I didn’t notice, I understood the concepts, but got the wrong answer. It infuriated me. It’s also why I love spellcheckers as they usually catch inversions).

So now I have my mss. and will stop writing this blog post while waiting nervously.

Comments

[mzelizabeth.livejournal.com]

you are awesome. i miss you.
i love it when you say things like "hagiographical"!
*hugs* to you and the fam:)