Three Book Conservation Alumni from West Dean College of Arts and Conservation have been awarded The Barakat Trust Major Award to be used for the conservation of the Islamic Manuscript Collection at the Franciscan Provincial Archives in Malta. Awarded annually, this is the first time the award has been given to a conservation project in Malta. The award covers material costs up to a maximum of £10,000 and the project will run until September 2023 – after that the manuscripts will be made available to researchers. Read more in the Press Release.
This issue of Spirit+Life features a paper on events in the life of Saint Francis during 1222 according to the Annales Minorumby Luke Wadding. This Franciscan historian records various events in the life of Saint Francis, which are also found in the Franciscan Sources, but without a specific date. Our aim is that of providing a set of papers on this theme during this year 2022. Anthony Carrozzo OFM provides a short paper entitled “Becoming a Prayer” in order to show the richness of the prayer of thanksgiving that Francis composed in chapter 23 of the Regula non bullata of 1221. Another paper is a translation of a study on the studium of Arabic in the Franciscan friary of Santa Marija ta’ Ġesù in Valletta, Malta, founded during the 17thcentury by Maltese friars who were professors of Arabic in the colleges of the Order in Rome, where missionaries prepared themselves to go to the Oriental missions and the Holy Land. This translation has been done as a result of the current restoration of the Arabic manuscripts conseved in the Provincial OFM Archives of Valletta, Malta, by a group of expert document and group conservators. Finally, the review features a translation of another section of the Chronicleof Nicholas Glassberger.
Franciscan Studies 