In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously known to have existed, the collection Epistulae ad Atticum, in the Chapter Library (Biblioteca Capitolare) of Verona Cathedral

So basically a guy goes into a library, rummages for a while, and finds ~1400 years old text no one knew was there

Do we still have places that store texts (like libraries, but doesn't have to strictly be a library) where we don't have everything catalogued and we don't know what might be inside?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

the collector and the seller know

So you have never bought or inherited an old collection - large boxes rather than single books? "Going to sort them later..." :)

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    No :D

    But then my question is, do we feel there are a lot of such collections? Or rather not?

    To rephrase a little bit:
    "Are there places where someone could pull off another Petrarch today?"

    • yes
    • no
    • a few
    • a lot
    • only in Africa (see the answer in AskHistorians)
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    only in Africa (see the answer in AskHistorians)

    While my answer was related to Africa, as that's where I'm most familiar with a paucity of study and an excess of material, I'd bet even money that there are plenty of other non-European (and outside of the Americas) collections that have yet to be fully catalogued, especially in the Islamic World and India. I just couldn't swear to it or name any regions in particular to look into.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment