Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission (DACT) visit for liturgical manuscripts

The Library’s collections of liturgical manuscripts, ranging from the 12th to the 18th century, is considered amongst the most significant in the southern hemisphere. While the collection currently is predominantly of Spanish origin, provenance for a number of these manuscripts cannot yet be established with any certainty. However, repertorial and decorative evidence in some of the books points to links with the liturgical agenda of Salamanca Cathedral in western Spain, and an international group of invited scholars are pursuing other aspects of “liturgical geography”.

The University of Sydney’s collection consists of 41 liturgical manuscripts and fragments. Some highlights of the liturgical manuscript collection include Lamentations of Jeremiah, several graduals, antiphonals, kyriales, tropers and a number of rare processionals. Representations of different decorative traditions include the oldest known European illustration of a turkey, originating in America, in the decorated margin of one Spanish Responsorial (F358). This collection was carefully curated with the expertise of Dr Jane Morlet Hardie. It has now generated several books, and a large number of papers, conference presentations, and online database entries by both major international scholars and University of Sydney academics including Dr Jane Morlet Hardie, Associate Professor Kathleen Nelson and Dr Nathan Cox.

The Library's collection has been digitised and can be viewed in high-resolution online through our Digital Collections website.

On Friday 17 January 2025, the Library welcomed academics from the Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission (DACT) partnership project from Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, and Australia. They viewed a selection of these liturgical manuscripts, including ongoing work on the identification and digital reunification of fragments from various manuscripts used as patches in the repair of a large 16th century Spanish Franciscan Antiphonary.