Yildiz Ashina Aleyna – Digital Palaeography

Seshat: A Digital Measurement Tool for Analysing Medieval Manuscripts

What is Seshat?

According to an apocryphal story, Lord Kelvin or as now believed, Albert A. Michelson, declared in 1900:

“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”

Is the fate of palaeography similar? In 1979 the distinguished palaeographer Bernhard Bischoff inadvertently touched on this question when he wrote in the introduction of his handbook that palaeography was being transformed in his time “from an art of seeing and sympathetic understanding” to “an art of measurement” (Paläographie des römischen Altertums und des abendländischen Mittelalters [Berlin, 1979], p. 17). The statement triggered heated reactions and defences of palaeography as an art of cultivated seeing. Our new digital tool Seshat is not intended to promote the idea that palaeography should be a purely quantitative discipline. But it does enable users to measure key features of scripts from high-quality images, which is both useful and desirable in the digital age.

Named after the Ancient Egyptian goddess of scribes, Seshat is a measurement tool with annotation features that make it possible to conduct a thorough palaeographical analysis of a digital object. It allows users to highlight textual regions, underline specific words or lines, insert comments, trace letterforms using adjustable pen angles (0°, 25°, 30°, 50°, and 80°), and excerpt data in different formats to be used as a dataset later. The tracing functionality supports the analysis of script ductus and scribal hand variation.

Taking inspiration from the first version of a software tool for the critical examination of historical handwriting called Graphoskop developed by Maria Gurrado and Giancarlo Lestingi (https://www.irht.cnrs.fr/fr/ressources/sites-web-outils-corpus/graphoskop), we have included a suite of measurement tools that calculate horizontal and vertical distances for particular script and page features: ascender and descender heights, interlinear spacing, margins, overall line heights, and inter-column spaces. A stroke angle measurement feature allows for precise documentation of letterform direction and inclination. Statistical tools automatically calculate averages, standard deviations, and mode values across measurements for both single pages and entire manuscripts.

Seshat is fully IIIF-compatible, enabling users to load manuscript images from major repositories such as the British Library, the Vatican Library, or other IIIF-compliant archives. The option to upload JPEG formatted images is also available. Image cropping functionality is built in, letting users isolate manuscript regions and export these selections in PNG or SVG formats, with or without annotations.

What were our goals when starting to develop this app?

When we started, our main goals were:·To provide a digital tool for precise annotation and measurement of palaeographic features (e.g. ductus, margins, letterforms).

• To simulate traditional palaeographic tracing methods (such as ductus analysis) in a digital environment by including adjustable pen angle tracing.

• To allow users to collect measurable data (distances, angles) and automatically generate statistical outputs to support comparative manuscript studies.

• To enable scholars to manipulate and export parts of manuscript images for publication or focused analysis.

• To ensure integration with IIIF resources for direct access to high-quality manuscript images without requiring local uploads.

Currently, Seshat includes all the functionalities listed above, and is already being applied successfully in internal research for ductus evaluation, scribal variation analysis, and manuscript layout studies.

Seshat in the Future

Seshat is not yet finished. Based on development and user feedback, we plan the following additional features:

Tracing

• Allow users to form strokes with a simulated quill, where the quill size is determined by selecting two points on the canvas in pixels. This size will be adjustable.

• Support saving both individual and clustered strokes together with the underlying cropped manuscript image.

Commenting

• Allow customization of comment text, including font family, font size, and colour, displayed on a transparent layer (removing the current speech bubble design).

• Enable adjustment of text appearance (font, size, colour) for clearer comment placement without obscuring manuscript details.

Measurement

• Integrate tracing and measurement tools to allow for linked analysis (e.g. measuring traced strokes).

• Provide pixel-based measurements that can be converted to standard units.

• Enable curve measurement and potentially measure nib (quill) width directly from the stroke trace data.

Alphabet selection

• Develop an alphabet selection tool to extract individual letter shapes defined by the user.

Moving forwards, we will be improving Seshat based on user feedback and will be doing our best to deliver a very user-friendly interface by spring 2026!

— Project eManuSkript Team

Proteus: A Tool to Simplify Post Processing of Multispectral Images

In manuscript studies, scholars often encounter texts that are barely legible from centuries of damage, reuse as in the case of palimpsests, faded ink, or chemical reactions. Multispectral Imaging (MSI) has emerged as a way to recover such hidden texts, capturing images of manuscripts under different wavelengths of light to reveal what the naked eye can no longer perceive.

While MSI is a successful and useful technique for text recovery, the tools required to process MSI images are often intimidating. Many existing applications assume a high degree of technical knowledge, from a chemical literacy to skills in navigating dense software menus. This steep learning curve can be a barrier for students and researchers who are new to the field.

A Tool for Everyone

Our goal was to develop a lightweight app with a simple, intuitive interface that enables users—especially those without a technical background—to explore MSI data without coding. We envisioned Proteus not just as a tool, but also as a guide: something that helps users navigate MSI post-processing with ease, without becoming imaging experts, by giving simple instructions on what images or features should be used for certain scans.

Instead of offering dozens of rarely-used features, Proteus focuses on a few impactful tools, delivered through a simple interface. We designed the interface so that each function is explained via pop-up tips, recommends effective image combinations for different tasks, performs the heavy computations silently in the background, and is supported by our MSI tutorials for a better understanding of the whole process. Our aim was to allow scholars to focus on interpreting texts, not on configuring software.

Simple and Sustainable Design

Proteus is built in Python, using libraries like OpenCV, NumPy, Pillow, and tkinter. This combination allows us to offer real-time image processing inside a platform-compatible graphical user interface. The GUI, powered by tkinter, makes image enhancement accessible through point-and-click interactions— which comes in handy for users with humanities backgrounds.

Users can load certain image stacks taken using multispectral imaging systems into the app, choose which feature to use, and select bands for further processing.

Among Proteus’s core features are:

– Pseudo-color images, which enhance contrast by combining spectral bands as RGB channels.

– Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which mathematically isolates features that reveal faded or overwritten text.

– Power, which intensifies each pixel in the image to get a better result, especially on faded pages.

These enhancements are powered by matrix operations (via NumPy) and OpenCV functions for tasks like histogram equalization, resizing, and denoising. Proteus also follows standardized naming conventions for exported images, and delivers a text file with the metadata, including a record of used features. This makes it easy to manage results across projects.

The app’s modular code design ensures future extensibility—whether for supporting more spectral formats, integrating machine learning, or adding new filtering methods.

The Current Version of Proteus

The first working versions of Proteus have already been actively used the app in internal projects and tasks. Following evaluations with Dr. Anna Dorofeeva and Dr. Alexander Zawacki, and with the assistance of our MSI team, we’ve gathered valuable feedback—pinpointing both bugs and areas for improvement.

This feedback is now shaping Proteus v3.0, which will feature improved performance, bug fixes, and new features inspired by user experience. We’re also excited about early experiments using Proteus on non-MSI images, where enhancements like PCA and contrast filtering have revealed details even in ordinary scans.

What Next?

Proteus is built in accordance with the principle that digital manuscript tools should be clear, simple, and powerful. We want to minimise the time spent on post processing and allow researchers to make the best use of their time.

We intend for Proteus to become a standard teaching and research tool in digital humanities programs, especially in MSI training units. By simplifying complex workflows, it will lower the barrier for students and scholars – even those with limited technical skills – to engage with multispectral imaging.

As the field of manuscript studies embraces new technologies, we believe tools like Proteus can lead the way—quietly doing the heavy work, while putting discovery back in the hands of the user.

References

Conjeti, Sailesh, Stefanie Demirci, and Vincent Christlein. Image retrieval in big image data. Elsevier, 2023.

DigiTRiP-Redaktion (17. Februar 2025). Proteus – Handschriftengeheimnisse aufdecken. DigiTRiP. Abgerufen am 26. Mai 2025 von https://doi.org/10.58079/13bto

Knox, Keith. “Hoku Software .” Rochester Institute of Technology, 11 Sept. 2017.

Leslie’s Blog. “Gradual Gaussian Blur Using Opencv.” Leslie’s Blog, 5 Aug. 2020, leslietj.github.io/2020/08/05/Gradual-Gaussian-Blur-Using-OpenCV/.

Roepke, Brian. “The Magic of Principal Component Analysis through Image Compression.” Lambda with Text - Wide, Data Knows All, LLC, 22 Mar. 2024, dataknowsall.com/blog/imagepca.html.

Team, PlantCV Development. “Pseudocolor.” PlantCV, plantcv.readthedocs.io/en/latest/visualize_pseudocolor/

One Year of eManuSkript: A Digital Journey into Manuscript Studies

One Year Anniversary of Project eManuSkript: Part One

In April 2024, a group of scholars and students, funded by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre, came together at the University of Göttingen’s Institute for Digital Humanities with an ambitious goal: to reimagine how medieval manuscripts can be taught, studied, and experienced in the digital age. Led by Dr. Anna Dorofeeva, Project eManuSkript has grown since then into a vibrant, interdisciplinary project that continues to evolve—shaped by its users, enriched by its team, and rooted in a shared commitment to accessibility and collaboration.

The Vision Behind eManuSkript

The idea was simple but important: manuscript studies, often remain difficult to access, especially for beginners or those outside of specialized institutions. Scholars might face barriers due to geographic distance, limited physical access to manuscripts, or a lack of training in palaeography or codicology.

Our goal was to build tools that would meet learners and researchers where they are—whether in the classroom, at an archive, or online. We wanted to create a digital platform that was not only technically sound but also inviting, accessible, flexible, and pedagogically grounded. The user experience and the needs of students in manuscript studies have driven the development of the project.

• • •

What We’ve Built

Over the past year, the eManuSkript team has been developing a suite of interconnected tools designed to address a range of issues associated with teaching and learning medieval manuscripts. Each one tackles a different challenge, and together they form a single interface.

Mergen is our AI-based layout segmentation app. It detects key manuscript elements—both text and paratext—with exceptional speed and accuracy, outperforming other existing segmentation tools and datasets. By using Mergen, the user can build a research corpus of specific manuscript elements. Using a three-layer segmentation method, our team annotated a significant corpus of raw manuscript pages to make sure Mergen reaches its potential in the shortest time. We still continue to update Mergen’s database regularly for even better results. ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Proteus simplifies a complex task: working on texts that are hard-to-read, whether due to chemical damage or purposeful erasure, such as in palimpsests, by making use of multispectral imaging technology. With Proteus, users can generate enhanced images—for example, using pseudo-colour or PCA—that reveal hidden or faded script. Proteus can even enhance high resolution visible-light images, using power or contrasts. Currently, we are finetuning Proteus V3.0.

Seshat is an annotation-and-measurement tool that allows users to analyse historical scripts. Users upload the manuscript they want to study using a IIIF link. They can then trace letterforms, calculate letter size, generate statistical data such as stroke angle, and compare different scribal hands. The resulting data, such as tracing, measurements and image embeddings, can be exported to be analysed further. We are also working on a script recognition model to add a precise, compact model of Latin scripts to our web app. A downloadable version of Seshat will soon include trained models for text recognition.

Ceres &Libera are two connected applications for exploring medieval bookbinding. Ceres, allows users to generate customised templates to visualise medieval manuscript bookbindings. For this app, our team’s plan to document the spine and sewing structures of a medieval book have been supported by expert input from conservators at the Göttingen State and University Library. The second app, Libera, is an interactive application where users can build their own codex from bookblock to cover. With Libera, users will be able to follow simplified tutorials as they build their codex and can build visualizations with specialized terminology and professionally illustrated components.

Supporting these tools is a rich range of interactive tutorials—including images, videos and interactive games—as well as a historical timeline and canonical script alphabets with ductus practice options. Accessibility is built into every layer: visual alternatives for those with impairments, multimodal learning options, and a user-friendly design that reduces the barriers to working with manuscripts.

These applications reflect our experimental approach to manuscript studies. Despite the growing number of digitised collections, access is still limited by the high level of specialist knowledge required. Through regular team meetings, in-class experimentation, and constant dialogue between developers, scholars, and students, we’ve shaped tools that genuinely respond to user needs—pushing boundaries while remaining grounded in traditional scholarship.

Together, these five tools create a full digital environment for investigating the medieval manuscript book—from physical structure and visual layout to textual content and palaeographic detail. By April 2026, all applications will be available through our website, and our datasets and backend code will be archived openly via GitHub and Zenodo. This suite of tools and tutorials will be complemented by an extensive glossary and Zotero library. We hope this will empower others to build upon our work and bring manuscript studies fully into the digital age.

• • •

People and Collaboration at the Heart

What truly powers Project eManuSkript is its team. Beginning as a group of ten, with backgrounds in history, digital humanities, computer science, German studies, English literature, and more, our team has changed over time, but what has remained consistent has been the interest the project has generated — from students to guest researchers, all enriching our ideas with fruitful support and feedback. Our collaboration is intentionally non-hierarchical and inclusive. We believe that the best solutions emerge from diverse perspectives and shared responsibility.

Team members contribute in many ways: designing user interfaces, labelling datasets, testing OCR models, writing documentation, or organizing outreach events. Each of us brings a unique angle, and we encourage constant feedback—especially from our fellow students at the Institute of Digital Humanities, who are both co-creators and core users of the tools.

• • •

Challenges and Lessons Learned

Of course, no digital project is without hurdles. Training machine learning models on historical scripts has meant confronting the limits of existing datasets and annotation tools. Designing interfaces for a multilingual, cross-disciplinary audience has forced us to think carefully about clarity and adaptability. And balancing research with usability remains an ongoing effort.

But these challenges have been productive. They’ve taught us to take a step back and recalculate, document thoroughly, and centre accessibility at every stage. We’ve also learned the value of working in public: sharing early prototypes, inviting critique, and adapting based on what users actually need.

• • •

What’s Next?

As we move into our second year, we’re expanding in different directions. This year, we’re refining our tools with the help of classroom testing, user studies, and more targeted community engagement. We are hoping that, by releasing our website for Project eManuSkript, we will encourage a larger public to explore our current work, both to offer constructive criticism and feedback on what we have accomplished so far and to measure their accessibility and practical usability for scholars and students from all around the world.

We are continuously working to make the best out of each app and expand the limits of our tutorials by going beyond the traditional approach. Going forward, we will continue to generate new ideas, to maintain outputs that are open, free, and adaptable, and, ultimately, to develop the best technologies we can for digital manuscript studies.

•

A Thank You—and an Invitation

Dear Reader,

On this first anniversary, we want to thank everyone who has contributed to eManuSkript: our funders, testers, advisors, and especially the students who’ve helped shape the tools with their questions and insights.

This project is still growing, and we hope it continues to spark curiosity, empower learners, and connect people to the world of medieval manuscripts in new and meaningful ways.

Whether you’re a student, a teacher, a researcher, or just a manuscript enthusiast —welcome. You’re invited to explore, learn, and build with us.
Best wishes,

– Project eManuSkript Team

A Walk Through the Castello Visconteo: Part 1 – A Quick Look Inside The Courtyard

Let us step inside the walls of Visconti Castle, at the heart of Pavia, a must-visit castle if you ever visit this small town. Not to be mistaken with other castles with the same name, Castello Visconteo di Pavia is only 50 minutes away from Milan by train. Our little series, Walk Through the Castello Visconteo aims to give you a glimpse of the castle and the museums (Musei Civici di Pavia), where the history breathes through every stone and fresco. Built between 1360 and 1365 under the rule of Galeazzo II Visconti, the castle stands as an example of Lombardia’s late Gothic architecture. Although the northern wing of the castle was lost during the Italian War of 1521-1526 under attack by France, today the majority of the castle remains intact and still as captivating as it was first built.

Once you step into the castle, you get to explore not only the castle itself but also the museums it is housing. With our blog series, we will take you on a swift tour of the castle and these museums. We will start with the rooms that successfully preserved some unique frescoes from the periods of two ruling families of Milan: Sforza (1450-1535) and Visconti (1277-1447).

Despite the castle’s partial destruction, the remaining structure still reflects the artistic and architectural brilliance of its era. Visitors can explore the courtyard, the portico, and the loggia with a modest entry fee of 1 euro, while the castle’s rooms house museum collections are accessible with a Civic Museums ticket, which costs 10 euros, or even as cheap as 5 euros on some festive days.

A Glimpse of the Courtyard

Standing in the courtyard, one cannot help but notice the harmonious yet distinct look of the architectural complex. Originally designed as a square structure approximately 150 meters on each side, complete with four corner towers, the castle’s perfection was slightly spoiled by the destruction of the northern wing. Yet, this does not change the majestic atmosphere that fills the space.

Built swiftly after Galeazzo II Visconti’s conquest of Pavia in 1359, the castle was ready for decoration by 1366, when Galeazzo II sought the finest painters of the time to adorn its walls. Today, visitors can still admire the surviving frescoes and sinopias that speak of its grand past.

“The lunette preserves fragments of an almost illegible frescoed composition, which was part of a narrative cycle dedicated to the exploits of Galeazzo II Visconti, the lord who, after conquering Pavia in November 1359, had the castle built as the residence of the Visconti court and adorned it by calling the best painters active in northern Italy.
This cycle occupied the sections of the walls of the lunettes under each arch, probably without interruption, as demonstrated by the presence of the fragment found under the impost of the sub-arch near the passage from the west ravelin…. Along the edges of the lunettes and the ribs in the vaults, there are still geometric decorations here and there – with cosmatesque stars, polylobed frames, and vegetal elements – sometimes resulting from early 20th-century restorations presumably based on pre-existing models.“
– Description Label of the Fresco, in Castello Visconteo

Throughout your walk, pay close attention to the details that offer insights into the daily life and history of the castle:

• Inscriptions:

Painted above some doors, these inscriptions indicated the function of the rooms within.

• • •

• Stonecutters‘ Marks:

Engraved into the stones used for columns and other structures, these marks reveal the craftsmanship behind the castle’s construction.

• • •

• Graffiti:

Spanning from the 16th century to the 19th century, when the castle served as a barracks, these markings provide a personal glimpse into the lives of those who once inhabited this space.

• • •

The Castello Visconteo of Pavia is more than just an architectural marvel; it is a living museum that encapsulates centuries of history, art, and culture. As you wander through its halls and courtyards, you are not merely observing relics of the past, but engaging with the stories and legacies that have shaped this magnificent structure. Enjoy your journey through time and let the echoes of the past enrich your understanding of the present.

We hope that our introduction to the Castello Visconteo was enough to grab your attention! Please stay tuned for Part 2!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Black, Jane. Absolutism in Renaissance Milan Plenitude of Power under the Visconti and the Sforza, 1329-1535 Jane Black. 1st ed., Oxford Univ. Press, 2010.

“Il Castello.” Il Castello – Musei Civici Di Pavia, museicivici.comune.pv.it/site/home/il-castello.html. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.

Milano, Archivio Storico Civico e Biblioteca Trivulziana, Cod. Triv. 1390, fol. 3r

Ponzi, Marco. “Mythical Origins of the Visconti Coat of Arms.” Medium, ViridisGreen, 28 Apr. 2024, medium.com/viridisgreen/mythical-origins-of-the-visconti-coat-of-arms-e98778ed2671.

“Sito Ufficiale Castello Sforzesco: L’edificio.” Sito Ufficiale Castello Sforzesco | L’edificio, www.milanocastello.it/en/edificio-voci. Accessed 6 May 2024.