The catalogue of facsimiles in the library in Paris is quite interesting because it has details on the precise techniques used for the reproduction. There is also a catalogue of the Palaeography collection in the University of London (2 vols., 1968), but it is a simple reproduction ("facsimile") of the card index and does not allow you to check which technique has been used for the reproduction.

An interesting academic paper which studies the early reproductions of works of art, and which also comments on early facsimiles of manuscript, was published by A. Hamber:

Anthony Hamber, 'The Use of Photography by Nineteenth-Century Art Historians', in: Helene E. Roberts (ed.), Art History through the Camera's Lens (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1995), pp. 89-122.

It mentions the Sforza facsimile on p. 104.

Godfried Croenen

--
Dr. Godfried Croenen
Director of Graduate Studies
School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies
University of Liverpool
Chatham Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZR
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)151 794 2763
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Personal webpage: http://www.liv.ac.uk/~gcroenen/index.htm
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: The list of the European Society for Textual Scholarship and the
> Society for Textual Scholarship
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James Cummings
> Sent: 22 November 2007 13:28
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Facsimile editions -- what is the first???
> 
> Peter Robinson wrote:
> > The earliest photographic facsimile I know is the Zupitza Beowulf, of
> 1882.  Any advances on this...?
> 
> This time actually on topic:
> 
> In the US's National Gallery of Art there was recently an exhibition on
> "Art and the early photographic album".  The webpage about which
> states:
> 
> "On view are the first photographically illustrated auction catalogue,
> issued in London in 1860; the first photographic facsimile of a
> manuscript,
> the Manuscript Sforza (1860); and an album from the 1850s representing
> one
> of the first attempts to photograph the drawings collection of the
> Uffizi
> Gallery in Florence."
> 
> While that is hardly definitive, it at least gives a new possible
> target of
> 1860 for a facsimile of the Sforza MS.  But I think it was John who
> said
> there were probably some in the early-mid 1850s and that would have
> been my
> guess.  (But I've yet to turn up any examples.)
> 
> -James
> 
> --
> Dr James Cummings, Oxford Text Archive, University of Oxford
> James dot Cummings at oucs dot ox dot ac dot uk