Unsolved problems

A leaf missing from our copy of volume I

Our scans of volume I pass straight from column 1190 to column 1195: one leaf, columns 1191 to 1194, is not there. It carried ANDREA BOBOLA, ANDREA DA BOLOGNA and the opening of ANDREA CORSINI; the few surviving lines of CORSINI stand at the head of the entry that follows. The pointer printed in volume II under BOBOLA leads to an entry we cannot yet show.

• BOBOLA, ANDREA, santo: v. ANDREA BOBOLA, santo. — Bobola, Andrew, Saint · the pointer in volume II

Why it stays open. It needs another copy of the volume, or a good scan of that leaf, read and checked like the rest.

Words misread

The pages were read by machine, and the reading is good but not perfect. Its errors gather where they matter most: proper names, Latin titles, and the numbers in bibliographies. A second, independent reading of every page has been tried on volume V; it finds something to correct on most pages, nearly always small (an accent, a letter, a digit).

Why it stays open. A correction has to be made in the same way in the page, the entry and its English, and only where two independent readings agree against the one shown. Until that is done volume by volume, the errors readers report are corrected by hand.

Plates cut at the edge

A few large plates were wider than the scan: the first letters of their captions fall outside the picture, and the caption begins in the middle of a word.

Why it stays open. The plates need to be photographed again from a copy laid flat.

Pointers to entries that were never printed

Some short entries send the reader elsewhere, “GEORGETOWN: v. WOODSTOCK”, to an entry the later volumes never printed; a few dozen such pointers lead nowhere. Where the subject is treated inside another entry, the pointer now leads there.

• GEORGETOWN: v. WOODSTOCK. — Georgetown · WOODSTOCK was never printed
• ELURO, TIMOTEO: V. TIMOTEO ELURO. — Eluro, Timothy · points to TIMOTEO ELURO, never printed

Why it stays open. There is nothing to link to. The pointer is shown as it was printed.

Entries without a signature

About one entry in a hundred shows no author. Usually the signature is on the page and was lost when the page was read. These entries show no author line rather than a guess.

Why it stays open. Each needs its page read again for the name, and the name matched to the list of contributors printed in that volume.

Papal acts cited but not in the library

Many citations name a papal act whose opening words it shares with a different act that the library does hold: Gregory XV's Aeterni Patris Filius of 1621 beside Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris of 1879; the 1944 bull Ad animarum bonum that erected Edmundston beside the 1947 bull of the same name. Each citation is checked against the pope and the date printed with it, and about two hundred of this kind are left as plain text.

• eretta il 16 dic. 1944 da papa Pio XII con la cost. ap. Ad animarum bonum — Edmunston, Diocese of · the library's Ad animarum bonum is the bull of 1947
• Col breve di Pio VII Beati Petri Apostolorum del 17 luglio 1817 — Casale Monferrato, Diocese of · the library's Beati Petri is of 1821
• the constitution Exponi nobis of Clement VIII — Questua · the library's Exponi nobis is another brief of Clement VIII

Why it stays open. Linking the namesake would send the reader to the wrong text. They will be linked when those acts are added to the library.

Library documents whose date or author disagrees with their own text

A citation is checked against the date and pope of the document it would link to, so a wrong date in the library makes a right citation look like another act. A few have been found: Ex debito is dated 1323 though its text is headed 1316; Si summus rerum is given to Leo X though it is Julius II's constitution as renewed by the Fifth Lateran Council; the brief Impensa is held twice, once under Pius VII and once under Benedict XIV, though the second copy is dated 1819 in its own text and signed by Cardinal Consalvi.

• con la cost. Ex debito (CIC, Extravagantes, comm. I, III, col. IV) — John XXII, Pope · left unlinked
• la S. Congr. del Concilio ha dichiarato ancora efficace il breve Impensa — Rice Churches · two copies of one brief

Why it stays open. Correcting them needs the printed page of the Bullarium for each act. Until then some right citations stay plain text.

The Liber Sextus as a collection

Citations of the Liber Sextus lead to the bull Sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae, by which Boniface VIII promulgated it. In CORPUS IURIS CANONICI the words mean the collection itself, which the library does not have.

• intending to refer to provisions of the Liber sextus — Corpus Juris Canonici

Why it stays open. There the citations stay plain text until the collection is in the library.

Dates misprinted in the Encyclopedia

A few citations print a wrong date or pope. MATRIMONIO gives Benedict XIV's Satis vobis as of 27 November 1751; it is of 17 November 1741, as the same entry says earlier. PANTEISMO dates Dei Filius 24 April 1879, for 1870; PROCURATORI DEI SACRI PALAZZI APOSTOLICI dates Clement XIII's Superni dispositione consilii 1785, for 1765; TOURNAI prints Pius IV for Paul IV. The text shows what was printed; the link goes to the right act.

• Benedetto XIV, con la sua cost. Satis vobis del 27 nov. 1751 — Marriage · the act is of 1741

Why it stays open. The site cannot yet set an editor's note beside a printed error, so readers see the date as it was printed.