Watch CBS News

Md. Museum Wins Grant To Digitize Medieval Books

BALTIMORE (AP) -- The National Endowment for the Humanities is awarding the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore a $265,000 grant to digitize, catalog and distribute 113 medieval Flemish manuscripts, including a collection of prayer books adorned with gold.

The three-year grant announced Tuesday will digitize 45,000 pages of text and over 3,000 pages of illumination from the 13th through the 16th centuries in present-day France and Belgium.

The museum says a highlight will be the digitization of 80 Books of Hours, which were prayer books that were "best sellers" in the Middle Ages.

This is the third digitization grant for the Walters since 2008.

At that time, the museum was awarded $307,000 to digitize Islamic manuscripts. The work continued with a $315,000 grant to digitize Armenian, Byzantine, Dutch, English, Ethiopian and German manuscripts.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.