The University of Kentucky Center for Visualization & Virtual Environments
Click here to view trailer.
Contact Julie Martinez to request a copy
A Digital Renaissance: Imaging the Iliad
During the summer of 2007 researchers from the University of Kentucky, University of Houston, College of the Holy Cross, Furman University, and Brandeis University gathered in Venice, Italy at the Marciana Library to digitally preserve the Venetus A, the oldest existing complete text of the Homeric Iliad. Meticulously crafted in Byzantium, the Venetus A has been stored for 500 years in the Marciana Library. Its thousand-year-old pages contain handwritten notes recoding a tradition of scholarship going back to the Ptolemaic scholars of the second century BCE. In addition to digital photos, the text was also scanned in 3D with each page now fully preserved as a 3D model.
During this time the Vis Center produced a documentary entitled, Imaging the Iliad: A Digital Renaissance. The film premiered on the University of Kentucky campus in December 2008 and then was first broadcast on Kentucky Educational Television in January 2009. Since then at least 25 public television stations around the United States have aired the documentary. The film has also been shown at the Islamic Manuscript Association at Christ's College in Cambridge, England. For information on this screening click here. In summer 2010, Imaging the Iliad was nominated for an Emmy Award.
To learn more about our Media For Research Lab please click here
Contact Julie Martinez to request a copy of A Digital Renaissace: Imaging the Iliad.
University of Kentucky Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments
Davis Marksbury Building • 329 Rose Street • Lexington, KY 40506-0633
phone: 859-257-1257 fax: 859-257-1505