July 22 2016

The Vatican Library houses the Marega collection, one of the biggest Japanese archive collections outside of Japan. A three-year project has been organized, by part of the Vatican Library in collaboration with a number Japanese cultural institutions (National Institutes for the Humanities of Japan; Ōita Prefectural Board of Education; Historiographical Institute, The University of Tokyo) to survey, conserve and to finally make this collection available to the scholars. An important stage of the project was developed by Japanese and Italian conservators working in a tight cooperation.

The purpose of this course - in collaboration with Toyota Foundation, Italian School of East Asian Studies and with the patronage of Università Pontificia Salesiana, Embassy of Japan to the Holy See and the Istituto Giapponese di Cultura (The Japan Foundation) - is to provide the participants with a general introduction to the Japanese archive materials, and to impart to them some of the theoretical and practical experiences accrued in the course of their conservation throughout the project.

The course is organized over two days: a first day of theory, followed by a second of practical activities, during which the participants will have the opportunity to treat original documents (Agenda). The lectures will be in Italian and Japanese; a written English translation of all lectures will be available. The practical sessions will be presented in Japanese with translation into both Italian and English.

The course is open strictly to paper conservators with working experience. Participation is necessarily limited to forty people for the first day (5th October) and to sixteen people for the second (6th October). Attendance to the first day is mandatory for those interested in attending the second day.

To apply, the candidates should send their applications, along with copy of their CV (in PDF), to workshop.marega@vatlib.it with their surname as subject within the 15th August 2016. The selection process will proceed on a rolling basis through evaluation of the candidate's experience until all available places have been assigned. Successful candidates will be notified from 5th September 2016; a waiting list will be published by the same date.

Attendance to the course is free of charge.