12/2017: Opening of the Cassette Ratti (Fourth Gaffurius Codex) at the Veneranda Fabbrica

In December 2017 Agnese Pavanello and Daniele Filippi visited the Archive of the Veneranda Fabbrica in order to have the long-awaited opportunity to see what remains of the Fourth Librone. The manuscript was severely damaged in a fire at the International Exposition of Milan in 1906; after preservative treatment, the fragments were arranged in a set of boxes, named Cassette Ratti after Achille Ratti (director of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in the 1910s, later Pope Pius XI), who supervised the process. In the 1950s the fragments were treated with chemicals at the Istituto di Patologia del Libro in Rome, in order to enhance the visibility of the text, and subsequently photographed. Our goal, shared with the archivist, Dr Maddalena Peschiera, was to determine the state of the fragments (never extracted from their boxes in the past sixty years), and evaluate whether they could be included in the upcoming campaign for the digitization of the Libroni. Two experts from the Istituto centrale per il restauro e la conservazione del patrimonio archivistico e librario (ICRCPAL), Dr Silvia Sotgiu and Dr Simonetta Iannuccelli, came from Rome, opened the boxes, and extracted the fragments. The verdict? Alas, judge by your eyes. A conservation plan is now being designed, and the safest option for us is to digitize (and digitally restore) the existing glass negatives made in the 1950s.