MEI (http://data.cerl.org/mei/_search) is a database specifically designed to record and search the material evidence (or copy specific, post-production evidence and provenance information) of 15th-century printed books: ownership, decoration, binding, manuscript annotations, stamps, prices, etc. Developed as a research tool that frames the international program 15cBOOKTRADE, MEI operates under the auspices of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), is constantly updated and supplemented by librarians and researchers in more than 450 libraries in Europe and the United States. The database currently holds (January 2021) more than 50,000 records of incunabula copies. Its contents are a valuable source for the study of the history of the book, the history of ideas, trade, and the ways of disseminating knowledge from the Renaissance onwards.

The Gennadius Library and the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, two libraries with rich collections of incunabula and active members of CERL, recently joined forces to make the navigation and the categories of information in the MEI database available in Greek. In an effort to make the use of the database easier for Greek librarians and researchers, Dr. Vera Andriopoulou, Head of Special Collections of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation and Irini Solomonidi, Senior Librarian of the Gennadius Library, have translated the terminology and the information of the database into Greek in order to provide accurate and clear description of the material testimonies for Greek users.

Check here the Greek “display” of the database Material Evidence in Incunabula, as well as examples of incunabula records of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation and the Gennadius Library.

The database of incunabula held in libraries all over Greece is continuously enriched by the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation.