Census of Manuscripts held in Italian libraries

MANUS is a database containing catalogue descriptions and digital images of manuscripts, private papers and archives held by Italian public, private and ecclesiastical libraries.

The census, launched by the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue (ICCU) in 1988, aims to list and catalogue manuscripts written in Latin alphabet from the Middle Ages to date, including private papers and literary archives. MANUS allows different levels of description, from short entries -even derived from older catalogues-, to first-hand, detailed descriptions.

To date, 452 cultural institutions take part in the project, and the Forum is open to any contribution suggesting corrections and changes to the description records, in order to encourage a fruitful dialogue among ICCU, libraries and scholars.