“The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) is pleased to announce the appointment...”

“Pick up any modern book today and you will likely find short quotes on the front or rear cover...”

“I’ve always been drawn to the stories behind art and artifacts, which led me to study...”

“When we think of medieval manuscripts in general, we may imagine male monastic scribes...”

“Dr. Ali Diakite, cataloger of West African manuscripts, began...”

“Church libraries in Ethiopia have often depended upon wealthy and powerful patrons...”

“The 1990s were chaotic and violent in the Balkan federation then known as Yugoslavia...”

“On a recent chilly October morning, I reached for one of HMML’s copies of...”

“Despite the vastness of Timbuktu’s digitized archives, it is a collection dominated by men...”

“The manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea come in all shapes and sizes...”

“When Martin Luther proclaimed his 95 Theses in 1517, the resulting shockwaves...”

“Texts in West Africa were highly mobile...”

“John Frederick Hinnebusch, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1923, was the youngest...”

“When discussing the idea of migration in European art history, attention is often focused on...”

“Have you ever wondered why gingerbread is a common part of Christmas traditions?”

“Hindu traditions and Islam share a deeply intertwined history in the Indian subcontinent...”

“On September 8, 1876, four boxes of books arrived...”

“In the middle of the 19th century, Arabic-speaking immigrants began to appear among the waves of newcomers arriving in the United States...”

“Animals in scripts as symbols of meaning and the art of communicating a message...”

“The refrain “The Lord works in mysterious ways” is rarely truer than it is in the Ethiopic Miracles of Mary...”

“Considered the king of animals, lions frequently appeared on coats of arms used by...”

“Antwerp seemed, in the 16th century, to be the center of the Western world...”

“In the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles (17:34), Luke describes the ‘marketplace of ideas’ in Athens...”

“In Arabic literature, as with many cultures, dogs are viewed with some ambivalence...”

“It began with a dinner in 2013...”

“Bird watching is typically an activity that...”

“Five new members have joined the 29-voting member HMML Board...”

“In historical Timbuktu—as in any part of the pre-modern world—animals were...”

“Nestled in the streets of London, just northwest of St. Paul’s Cathedral, resides a...”

“For thousands of years, languages around the world have attempted to capture the sounds of animals...”

“Interwoven tapestry of the natural and spiritual worlds as observed through the Armenian liturgical calendar...”

“The most famous weather event in Maltese history occurred in the first century CE when...”

“In describing printed books, a cataloger looks for subjects or areas of study where...”

“The term “April showers” derives from the frequency of short and regular showers that are...”

“The best-known eclipse mentioned in Muslim sources was the solar eclipse that occurred on...”

“Many of the regions where HMML has worked are no stranger to earthquakes...”

“Few things can impact daily life in quite the way that weather does...”

“In the days before social media, how did people share a noteworthy weather phenomena...”

“An answer to the question of what it means to be human...”

“One of the most common uses of manuscripts over the centuries is to train children in reading and writing...”

“With their 1962 children’s musical Space Adventure...”

“Dr. Arthur Voobus was many things—a scholar, pastor, teacher, and refugee in exile...”

“All of Timbuktu’s family libraries that were digitized by HMML include numerous compositions that...”

“HMML’s preservation work in India began in 2008 with the manuscript collections of...”

“The organ is not the first musical instrument that comes to mind when...”

“Singing is one of those amazing things...”

“Although music is an aural and tactile experience, human beings also have a...”

“Among HMML’s microfilms of the Durham Cathedral Library...”

“I’m not a musicologist, but I am an avid fan of music from all times...”

“The Arabic manuscript tradition is rich in medical works discussing remedies and...”

“The book of vows contained one manuscript...”

“Ephrem is perhaps the most widely known of all Syriac authors...”

“Grief, loss, and death itself were very much part of...”

“The story of the Zaydīs begins in approximately 740 CE, with a revolt along the...”

“In the days before they were going to kill him, Fra Sylvain de Bosredon woke up early in the morning to the dull sound of...”

“The Black Death pandemic of the 14th century dramatically reshaped many cultures...”

“How do you represent grief? For Marc Chagall, the Russian-born Jewish artist...”

“Stories about saints, much like their relics, rarely remain tied to...”

“A choir of cowled monks around a shrouded casket, a body being laid into a coffin, a smiling skeletal figure, an old man sitting on a dung heap...”

“The Gaza Strip is the smallest of the two Palestinian territories in...”

“As of July 1, 2023, HMML is operating as its own 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. HMML began in 1965...”

“Khalīl ibn Jirjis Janāwī was a scribe, a collector of manuscripts, and an artist who was...”

“...each manuscript is an artistic production and requires physical labor performed by a single individual—the scribe...”

“If you want to establish a new church, you’re likely going to need some books...”

“The act of hand-copying a manuscript requires specialized skills that...”

“A great opportunity to look at the interaction between manuscript and print cultures can be found in the Middle East...”

“In the mid-15th century, the invention of the printing press made books relatively easier to produce and...”

“In 1492, the abbot of a Benedictine monastery in Sponheim, Germany, wrote a small paean to scribes and the act of writing...”

“A large amount of the manuscripts digitized in Timbuktu, Mali, that we at HMML have cataloged are fragments...”

“HMML’s Art & Photographs collection is full of fragments of the 15th and 16th century...”

“Luqmān the Sage (also known as Luqmān al-Ḥakīm, the wise) is a legendary character in Arabic and Islamic storytelling...”

“Johann Gottfried Wetzstein served as honorary Prussian consul in Damascus, Syria, from 1849 to 1861...”

“When I arrived at the Palazzo Falson in Mdina, Malta...”

“Cultural losses continue to beset communities around the world, especially in areas subject to armed conflict...”

“Manuscripts are known for their idiosyncratic nature...”

“What would you do if someone handed you a page that had clearly been torn out of a book...”

“In the early decades of HMML, the region beyond the proverbial Iron Curtain was out of reach.”

“The Great ʿUmarī Mosque in Gaza is the largest and oldest mosque in the Gaza Strip...”

“When Father Oliver Kapsner began to microfilm the medieval manuscripts at Kremsmünster Abbey, Austria, in late 1964, he could not have imagined...”

“Much of human history remains for us today only in the form of smaller remnants or fragments...”

“Jacques Hnizdovsky had arrived in the city the year before as a...”

“Pope Paul IV (1476–1559) issued the Index Auctorum et Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559 to publicly identify books the...”

“The Lebanese poet, journalist, and linguist Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī (1847–1906) has gained fame as a...”

“Printing reached Ethiopia rather late. In Europe, texts were occasionally printed in Ethiopic characters from...”

“Maḥmūd ibn ʻUmar al-Zamakhsharī did not have an easy childhood. He was born in 1075 CE into a...”

“A book you would love to read is lost, altered, destroyed, buried, hidden, left unpublished, unwritten, banned.”

“The advent of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century led to...”

“ʻUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Turūdī, was a scholar from Kebbi, present-day northern...”

“Christianity has a long, rich history in India. Some even trace the origins of Christian communities in India to...”

“In 2016, HMML’s Malta Study Center began the Malta Parish Archives Project to...”

“Angels occupy an important place in monotheistic religions. They are mainly presented as celestial beings...”

“HMML’s first library partnerships were to photograph the collections of prominent libraries in...”

“In summer of 1917, the New York-based artist Rockwell Kent made a bold decision.”

“In the spring of 2012, the desert city of Timbuktu in northern Mali was attacked and...”

“Rainbows are optical illusions caused by the reflection, refraction, and...”

“The Syriac Book of Medicines is a fascinating compendium of medical lore from the...”

“Born Ben-Zion Weinman in Starokostiantyniv, Ben-Zion came to New York City in...”

“Today, depending on what communities you are a part of, your concept of a year may follow a calendar that is...”

“Astronomical observation is built into the most basic religious practices of the...”

“In Syriac Christian communities, astrological texts were sometimes appended to medical books and...”

“When I was a boy, the night sky always fascinated me—stars, moon, planets, nebulae, comets, and...”

“In Wayne Gretzky’s final NHL game in Minnesota, he added four assists to the...”

“Among the well-known biblical narratives is that of the twins Jacob and Esau, and...”

“HMML Authority File (HAF) is a new open-access database created as part of...”

“The use of tobacco in the Sahel, whether smoking, chewing, or taking as snuff, was widespread and...”

“In 1744, the French Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary established a convent in ʻAynṭūrah, Lebanon, known in Arabic as...”

“A group of women cluster together, several clutching the handles of lidded pots...”

“When Cláudia Garradas learned about the opportunity to digitally preserve the archives of the Monastery of Santa Ursula...”

“There are several manuals in the Arabic literary tradition describing the profession of the...”

“Between 1585 to 1600 Maarten de Vos designed 141 engravings depicting hermits.”

“Who doesn’t love a good glass of wine? White, red, or something in between, authors throughout history...”

“It was the late 14th century, and Shīrāz was the city of poets.”

“Microfilm was used by HMML to preserve images of manuscripts from...”

“Pie. Today, for many, this tasty baked good with its short, flaky crust suggests associations of...”

Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) Announces Second Season of its Virtual Series, “To Listen: A Global Journey”

“The history of Arabian Nights stories in Christian communities is still imperfectly understood.”

“On a shelf in the Syriac Orthodox Church of Saint George in Aleppo is a manuscript copied in Arabic Garshuni...”

“Who hasn’t heard a fairy tale about a princess whose beauty moves the richest and...”

“This year, HMML received a large donation of Russian icons from the collection of Edmund Gronkiewicz...”

“While some elements of the story are fiction, others are clearly inspired by real events in Khaybar.”

“Biblical narratives often leave the audience wanting to know a bit more.”

“Despite having been contested in Islamic history by powerful groups rejecting them as illegitimate practices, magic and...”

“We live in a world ravaged by a pandemic, by wars, by all manner of catastrophic and...”

“While many artists have provided illustrations for books, some works in the Art & Photographs collection at HMML were inspired by stories...”

“HMML’s digital collections include entertaining stories from a wide range of linguistic and...”

“HMML has developed a new database to support and enhance the study of understudied manuscript traditions...”

“Have you ever heard a great joke, but then later when you tried to recount it for someone else, you couldn’t remember it?”

“Towards the end of Getatchew Haile’s first published catalog of Ethiopic manuscripts...”

“At many points in its history, Jerusalem has been one of the world’s most important cultural crossroads...”

“The highlights of the island included the harbor of Valletta, an elaborate and protective harbor famous for...”

“When people ask how we find new projects for HMML, I admit that sometimes they just come to us.”

“In July 2021, a series of multispectral imaging tests were conducted at HMML by Mike Toth of...”

“Mobility was a central feature of individuals, societies, and texts within Muslim West Africa’s...”

“On the eve of the Somali Civil War, tensions ran high in my ancestral home of Galdogob as...”

“In 1945, a pharmacist living in Lebanon—Manaseh Kaprielian—presented a 17th-century Armenian manuscript to...”

“This five-year grant focuses on digitization, archiving and cataloging of endangered manuscript collections...”

“Rome has long been a destination for travelers from around the world.”

“The great Age of Sail conjures in our minds vast stretches of ocean populated by...”

“This note is the sole testament to the manuscript’s remarkable journey from Egypt to Mardin, a city in...”

“Much has been said about the scholarly achievements of Prof. Getatchew Haile...”

“With great sadness we learned that our dear friend and colleague...”

“In the mid-19th century, a group of French artists began to reevaluate the art of...”

“In September 1647 CE, al-Ḥasan al-Ḥaymī left the port of al-Mukhā (Mocha) in...”

“Towards the middle of the 15th century, the Ethiopian Emperor Zar’a Yā‘eqob, a prominent theologian and scholar, faced...”

“The increased activity of Malta’s ports after the Aragonese conquest in 1283 led to a...”

“Inspired by the need to promote active listening in the pursuit of understanding and connection, HMML developed a...”

“In West Africa knowledge of the Qur’an was often combined with local pharmacological traditions to...”

“On this day seventy-five years ago, an early-14th century illuminated gospel book arrived at the...”

“Many medical works from antiquity were translated into Syriac and transmitted through the...”

“Herbals—books describing the medicinal use of plants—have been important scientific sources for...”

“The disastrous impact of plague epidemics in the Middle East has been documented in numerous accounts...”

“HMML developed a series featuring cultural preservation partners and leaders from...”

“Yeɗi Sanba Ɓooyi was a scholar who belonged to the Fulani, a traditionally nomadic people who...”

“People in past centuries would sometimes use the blank flyleaves and margins of manuscripts to...”

“Yeɗi belonged to the Fulani people, one of West Africa’s many ethnic groups, which...”

“The Archivum de Piro in Valletta, Malta preserves a small invoice and...”

“The Monastery of Saint Macarius is one of the oldest active Coptic monasteries in Egypt.”

“Inspired by the call to action in Fr. Columba Stewart’s 2019 Jefferson Lecture, this program will include interviews with...”

“Along with the direct physical resistance to this unjust trade, the text shows...”

NEH grant for cataloging, to create an authority file system database, and work with Library of Congress (LC) and Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)

“The work of Dr. Getatchew Haile, long-time curator of the HMML Ethiopia Study Center...”

HMML is now in partnership with the West African Arabic Manuscript Database

“The three couples have been friends for more than 35 years. They have traveled together and...”

Museum and investment executives named to Board of Overseers

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed the digitization of the important Lettere consolari fonds now held at the...”

“Today we move forward with that name at the center of our new brand identity.”

“The Khalidi Library in East Jerusalem and The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library announce that the complete digitized manuscript collection...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center signed an agreement with the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel...”

“The HMML palimpsest SJU Ms Frag 32 is a single parchment leaf from...”

“HMML’s cultural, religious, and geographic focus has expanded considerably since it began...”

“Why is a Cultural Heritage Matters is a TPT 30-minute program which highlights the reasons why preserving the past...”

“HMML curators are continuing to work from home through the current global pandemic...”

“HMML curators are continuing to work from home through the crisis...”

“BBC World Service’s Heart and Soul program aired a story featuring HMML’s work in preserving the manuscript collections of Timbuktu.”

“HMML’s very own palimpsest fragment recently underwent high energy x-ray imaging at...”

“In December, Fr. Columba traveled again to Mali to visiting HMML’s digitization sites in both...”

“The grant will fund a three-year project to catalog 53,000 digitized manuscripts and create...”

“HMML welcomes Dr. Heinin Ali Diakite, Dr. Catherine Walsh, and Katrina Schlude...”

“Metadata is data about data…and in HMML’s case, includes information about a...”

“HMML began digitization at the Pontificio Collegio Armeno (PCA) in Rome in 2018.”

“Fr. Columba, executive director of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University, is being honored for his work...”

“The staff at HMML continue to contribute broadly to the fields of history, cultural studies, and...”

Watch Father Columba's NEH 2019 Jefferson Lecture.

“Established by the NEH in 1972, the lectureship is the highest honor bestowed by the federal government for...”

“Lebanon is one of the most religiously variegated countries in the Middle East.”

“This year marks twenty years since the first significant efforts were made to use multispectral imaging (MSI) to reveal hidden...”

“vHMML Reading Room, HMML’s digital library, now holds over 50,000 records...”

“vHMML Museum, a new component of the vHMML digital platform, went live on...”

“Materials curated by the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) are featured in the...”

“HMML is pleased to announce the acquisition of “William Shakespeare’s Second Folio” to its...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed a digitization project with Heritage Malta to...”

Digital copies of the Rossi, Ansaldi and Caetani Yemeni manuscript collections now available in vHMML Reading Room.

HMML was featured on the CBS news program “60 Minutes”

“Harvard features an alumni profile of Father Columba Stewart in the January-February 2018 issue of...”

“The Saint John’s Bible has traveled the world on exhibition and inspired people of all cultures and...”

“HMML has a vast collection of online manuscript and resource materials on the early modern Mediterranean...”

“The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library an outright grant of...”

“In recognition of the career and work of Dr. Getatchew Haile, FBA, a festschrift was...”

“HMML is collaborating with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, to provide open access to...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed the digitization of 90 manuscripts and rare Melitensia located at the...”

“vHMML Reading Room will be a game-changing research tool for anyone interested in manuscript studies...”

“Donald Jackson received one of the highest honors bestowed upon laypeople by the Vatican.”

“The exhibition features more than twenty original rare books and manuscripts narrating the history of the...”

“Father Columba Stewart has been awarded a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation...”

“The Malta Study Center at HMML has signed a partnership agreement with the Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti (FPM) to begin...”

“HMML is very excited to announce the launch of vHMML (“Virtual HMML”)...”

“Arcadia Fund has awarded a $4 million grant to the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library...”

“The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library...”

“HMML is creating digital records of more than 22,000 rare and historically-significant documents from a...”

“Against a background of terrorism and the destruction of religious and cultural heritage sites, HMML...”

“The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) has just been named an Associate Organization of the Renaissance Society of America...”

“Known as the Officium Civile Sacrae Inquisitionis (OSI) Fond, the collection contains records that date from...”

“The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library has been awarded a $500,000 three-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support...”

“The seminar’s mission is to encourage scholarly collaboration across disciplines and...”

“Dr. Daniel Gullo has been named the Joseph S. Micallef Curator of the Malta Study Center.”

“The ceremony will be chaired by Nobel-Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, the...”

“When Timbuktu’s ancient libraries were in danger of destruction by Islamist militias during the...”

“Fr. Columba Stewart and his team have returned to Bamako, Mali, where he and...”

“The Council of the British Academy has bestowed the Edward Ullendorff Medal upon Dr. Getatchew Haile.”

“The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library has been awarded a grant of $350,930 from The Institute for Museum & Library Services for...”

“HMML-trained technicians in Aleppo, Syria, have completed the digitization of 225 Armenian manuscripts...”

“The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library has been awarded the National Medal for Museum and Library Service...”

“A $3 million grant from the Arcadia Fund of London has been awarded to the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library...”

“HMML has begun manuscript preservation work in Jerusalem...”

“Ted Erho, a doctoral student at Durham University in England, recently spent six weeks at HMML studying...”

“L’viv is a Ukrainian city whose multicultural past survives in at least two forms: its buildings and...”

“When the Benedictine monks came to Minnesota in 1856, they brought with them a chest packed with the...”