Possibilities of using the video spectral comparator VSC 8000 in the study of defaced ownership notes in the incunabula of the National Library of the Czech Republic

Summary: This paper explores the possibilities of using the VSC 8000 video spectral comparator to visualize and paleographically read ownership notes in early prints that have been deliberately defaced in the past by dense ink crossing or ink overwriting. Using the example of six incunabula from the National Library’s collection, it shows when and why the original owners‘ notations were defaced and reconstructs the reading history of these 15th -century prints. The VSC 8000 can be a powerful tool in the developing provenance research. Czech library science has not yet practically used the possibilities of multispectral analysis of degraded provenance.

Keywords: incunabula, provenance research, ownership notes, history of libraries, videospectral comparator, multispectral analysis

PhDr. Kamil Boldan, Ing. Andrei Kazanskii / Národní knihovna České republiky (National Library of the Czech Republic), Klementinum 190/5, 110 00 Praha 1