BIVALDI: Biblioteca Valenciana Digital
In the month of May in 2002, the Biblioteca Valenciana starts a project of digitalization denominated Biblioteca Valenciana Digital (BIVALDI). It refers to a digital library in which it is able to consult relevant and significant Valencian scientific and literary works, apart from works which are considered to be of interest for the development and improvement of scientific investigation about the historic, bibliographic, and cultural inheritance.
This deals with an ambitious project which is not created as a repository of any determined theme or as a reflection of the resources which are taken care of in the Biblioteca Valenciana. The Biblioteca Valenciana Digital intends to recuperate the Valencian bibliographic inheritance, which means it intends to be the meeting place of works that form part of said inheritance irrespective of its location. For this reason, we find in BIVALDI works which are not property of the Biblioteca Valenciana and which cannot be acquired, or because they are unique examples or because they are not on the market. But this is not the only objective of BIVALDI; it is also created for the necessity to offer more information, which means it is intended to incorporate, together with the work, informative elements of added value about the authors, the works, the printers, and so on.
All investigators and the general public who consult BIVALDI will be able to enjoy the works thanks to an easily manageable informatics platform which permits simple surfing. One of the outstanding attractions of this library platform is that the user can surf, not only in an individual way through the original digitalized text or through its transcription and/or translation when they are necessary, but also in a simultaneous way on the same screen, with the original work together with its transcription and translation. Also the user, as has already been mentioned, counts on wide information about the author and his work. This deals with bibliographies and specialised studies about the works, the printers, biographies of the writers, and so on.
Logically, to be able to begin this project, the Biblioteca Valenciana needs the collaboration with other institutions for the obtaining and later digitalization, or for obtaining the digital reproduction.
Between others, the University of Valencia has provided the digitalization of the incunables of Les obres o trobes en laors de la Verge Maria—which is the first literary work printed in Spain in the year 1474; from Tirant lo Blanch by Joanot Martorell; from Regiment de la cosa pública—work of Francesc Eisimenis; de l’Omelia sobre lo psalm “De profundis” by Jeroni Fuster; from l’Omelia sobre lo psalm “Miserere mei Deus” by Narcís Vinoles; from Lo somni by Joan Joan; from Lo procés de les olives; and from the incunable of 1493 which contains the Historia de la Pació by Bemat Fenollar and Pere Martínez, la Contemplació a Jesús Crucificat by Joan Escrivá and Bemat Fenollar and l’Oració a la Sacratíssima Verge Maria by Joan Rois de Corella, the last of the great Valencian medieval writers. Because of this, the Valencian City Council has authorised the digitalization of two incunables. On one hand, the translation of Imitació de Jesucris—better known as the Kempis—related under the name of Menyspreu del món by Miguel Pérez, a Barcelona edition which is the oldest translation of printed work in the world in the Romance language; on the other hand, the translation of Les Meditationes vitae Christi by Ludolf de Saxonia, a version of the “Cartoxá,” requested to the Valencian authorities by King Fernando el Católico from Castille.
On the other hand, the Hispanic Society has provided the digital reproduction of the two unique pages of the Biblia valenciana, printed in 1478 and attributed to Bonifacio Ferrer. Also included in BIVALDI is the digitization of the copy of Tirant lo Blanch kept in the American Institute, which has permitted the changing of the pages in bad condition or lost of the first edition of “Tirant,” the first novel of the Valencian literature kept, as we have aforementioned in the University of Valencia.
L’Abadia de Montserrat has given permission for the digitalization of the copy of Antidotarium clarificatum, by Nicolau Spíndeler and printed in 1495, and of the work of the Valencian Amau de Vilanova, doctor to popes and kings, which is kept in the Catalan Institute.
Also, BIVALDI has been able to count on the collaboration of the Biblioteca Nacional de España, which has given permission for the digitalization of the Obra a llaors de Sent Cristófol and Vita Christi by sor Isabel de Villena—a work by one of the most important writers of the medieval Europe—an incomplete copy of which is kept in the Biblioteca Valenciana.