Eredità da preservare, diffondere, re-investire. Esperienze bolognesi

This paper aims, in the first instance, to present the Old Collection of the Law Library “A. Cicu” of the University of Bologna - very well known for the quality and compactness of its endowment of XVI-XIX c. early and rare printed texts - from its origins to its progressive development over the last century. The digitization project of the Old Collection was funded under the call for proposals 2021 of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, intended to support forms of preservation and enhancement of the movable and immovable heritage of Italian universities. The selective digitalization project of the ca. 600 texts identified, which was carried out with the most advanced technologies, was intended to preserve and at the same time facilitate the dissemination of a heritage of legal science that is a typical expression of the legal aspects of the centuries long ius commune tradition. A heritage of testimonies of ‘living’ law, born for the use of scholars and students, which only thanks to dematerialization interventions - such as the one we are pleased to illustrate in its various phases - can only circulate as shared culture. These are projects that our department - together with other universities - has been involved in for some time, such as the Irnerio Project, which was a seminal project in the Digital humanities