Opening the Geese Book

ACMRS is pleased to participate in a major project to make a sixteenth-century manuscript available to the public. The Geese Book is a large, lavishly illuminated, two-volume gradual made for the church of St. Lorenz in Nuremberg between 1504 and 1510. Today it is conserved in the J. Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (M. 905). It derives its name from a bas-de-page illustration showing a choir of geese directed by a wolf (above). Click here for an image of the full page.

The goal of the Opening the Geese project is to make this manuscript widely accessible to audiences, re-integrating its verbal, visual, and musical components using modern multimedia technology. Plans are underway to produce an electronic facsimile and to make it available on the Internet through ITER. Additionally an interactive DVD ROM with sound recordings, explanatory material, documents, and essays will be prepared. Other facets of the project include a seminar, a concert, a radio documentary, and an audio compact disc.

ACMRS has received a grant of $100,000 from the Samual H. Kress Foundation for this project, and several German institutions have pledged support. Bavarian Radio Corporation in Nuremberg, the University of Toronto, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, and the Schola Hungarica of Budapest are collaborating with ACMRS on this project. Faculty and graduate students interested in participating in this undertaking should contact the project directors: Volker Schier: Volker.Schier@fen-net.de and Corine Schleif: CorineSchleif@compuserve.com.

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