The director of the National Library of Portugal, Diogo Ramada Short,explains that part of the library’s own program is a valorization of two areas in relation to which there is a lack of specialists: one is the palaeography (study of ancient and medieval manuscript texts) and the other is that of Latin.
A “there is not a single Latinist”, a “serious gap that has to be resolved soon”, said this Wednesday the director of the institution, which has a valuable Latin heritage under its care.
“It is a serious fault that the institutions that have under their care such a wealth of Latin heritage do not have two or three Latinists”, said Diogo Ramada Curto during the opening session of the presentation of the exhibition “Aquiles Estaço: um Portuguese humanist in 16th century Europe”.
Speaking to Lusa, on the sidelines of the presentation, the person responsible explained that part of the library’s own program is a valorization of two areas in relation to which there is a lack of specialists: one is the palaeography (study of ancient and medieval manuscript texts) and the other is that of Latin.
“The National Library does not have, just as other heritage institutions do not have, at this moment, a reference Latinist, nor a reference paleographer, and, therefore, we are working to bring this knowledge to the National Library, which it meets one of our values, which is the most erudite, more restricted, more linked to research, more linked to humanistic studies”, he said.
This lack is not due to the lack of specialists in these areas, but to “decades of failure to recruit senior technicians in this same area, which was left abandoned for decades”.
“It’s not about strictly accusing anyone. Nowadays, from my point of view, there is a very interesting and quite correct appreciation of what goes through the digitalization process, which is a complicated process, and we are involved, we obtained funds and we are very interested in this digitization program, but we consider that the fulfillment of our purpose, which is to care for and study the Portuguese bibliographic heritage, involves many other aspects and one of them has to do with paleography, with knowledge of Latin and, I would also say, from the Greek itself”, he added.
Contextualizing, Diogo Ramada Curto clarified that one of BNP’s goals is the preservation of its bibliographic legacywhich, in relation to certain periods, “does not only involve Portuguese, passes through Latin and Castilian“, a “triangle, especially for the 16th and 17th centuries”, in relation to which the library wants to enhance the bibliographic heritage.
At the same time, whether value “this more erudite part, more related to Latin studies”he said, highlighting the importance of the coordination work carried out with universities, namely with the Center for Classical Studies of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon, “which is one of the centers of excellence in promoting these studies”.
However, this articulation does not replace the need to have “our own specialists in these same areas”, who are “capable of studying and explaining our bibliographic heritage, which is also a bibliographic heritage in Latin”, he argued.
“We need to have specialists with us who can serve as partners in relation to research institutions and university research centers. This is, in essence, the tradition of the National Library and its most golden period, which occurred during the direction of Jaime Cortesão, between 1919 and 1927”, he pondered.
However, Diogo Ramada Curto expressed confidence that this gap will be filled and stated that he has “hope to do many things at the National Library“, because “there is total alignment” with the Minister of Culture, who — in his opinion – has “a very complete and complete understanding of institutions like the BNP”.
