Brief History

Since 2005 e-codices has been digitizing manuscripts from all regions of Switzerland. During the first two years of the project, as a result of a joint pilot project with the Abbey Library of St. Gall, 130 manuscripts from the Abbey Library were published online on the CESG (Codices electronici Sangalleses) website. Thanks to generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (New York), the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Monaco), e-lib – Swiss electronic library, and numerous other funding sources, e-codices has been able to expand to include manuscripts from all over Switzerland. As the “Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland” e-codices offers free online access to medieval and early modern manuscripts from public and church-owned collections as well as from numerous private collections. From 2013 to 2020, e-codices was part of swissuniversities' national program “Scientific information” for the establishment of digital infrastructure.

e-codices was an initiative of Prof. tit. Dr. Christoph Flüeler, then Professor for Manuscript Studies and Medieval Latin and member of the Medieval Institute at the University of Fribourg.

Year Project Manuscripts Libraries Sponsors (Selection)
2003 Pre-project        
2004 CESG       Numerous Swiss foundations, including the Paul Schiller Stiftung, the UBS Kulturstiftung, the Ernst Göhner Stiftung
2005 Pilot Project - CESG (Digital Abbey Library of Saint Gall, 2005-2006)   62 1
2006 e-codices Pre-project (2006-2007)   139 6
2007     235 13
2008 e-codices   363 16 Support from foreign foundations such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2008-2013) and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (2010 and 2011/2) and other Swiss foundations
2009     570 24
2010     721 30
2011     864 35
2012     961 42
2013   Fragmentarium Pre-project  1'054 44

Part of the P-2 "Wissenschaftliche Information" program of swissuniversities (2013-2016, 2017-2018)

 

Support of Fragmentarium by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2015-2018), the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (2015-2017), the Zeno-Karl-Schindler Foundation (2016-2018)

2014     1'233 51
2015   Fragmentarium (project associated of e-codices) 1'458 63
2016     1'700 70
2017     1'947 79
2018     2'179  86 
2019     2'338 94
2020     2'539 97
2021     2'653 97  
2022     2'733 97  
2023     2'846 98