BaTyR - Renaissance Typography Database
Project Presentation
The Renaissance Typography Database gathers information related to the history of printing materials (typefaces, engraved plates) used in Europe from the 15th to the 17th century. It is the result of over twenty years of work carried out by the Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes team in close partnership with the Laboratory of Fundamental and Applied Computer Science at the University of Tours. Funded as part of the TypoReF project (‘Typography of the French Renaissance, 1470-1640’), the new database allows for the description and indexing of materials appearing in numerous digital libraries, thanks to the IIIF image exchange protocol.
History
This project has its origins in 2004, with the development of the Agora software by Jean-Yves Ramel, which enables the automatic extraction of typographical materials images. This tool allowed Sébastien Busson, who was in charge of photography and the database for the BVH program at the time, to set up a first database of ornamented letters (around 3,500 elements). These data have contributed to research and the field of digital image processing, which was implemented in two successive ANR projects: Madonne (2004-2006) and Navidomass (2006-2009).
In September 2008, Marie-Luce Demonet entrusted the drafting of a report entitled Les bibliothèques virtuelles humanistes et l’étude du matériel typographique to Rémi Jimenes (a PhD student and research engineer at the time). This report prepared the groundwork for the integration of the first version of the database into a beta version of the Base de Typographie de la Renaissance [Renaissance Typography Database]. Published in 2013, this beta version— which only listed engraved decorative materials (headpieces, initials, culs-de-lampes, marks)— remained the only available version for ten years.
In 2023, as part of the ANR TypoReF project (Typography of the French Renaissance, 1470-1640), funded by the French National Research Agency, the database was fully reworked and reorganized to take on a new dimension. Now open to all printing materials, it not only describes engraved plates but also typefaces, original materials (matrixes, stamps, molds...), and documents related to the history of printing materials, preserved in museums or libraries.
Still in development, BaTyR is expected to become a reference portal for the history of typography in the Renaissance, especially in the Kingdom of France.
