(VATICAN CITY) — A Japanese information technology company has agreed to digitize 3,000 Vatican manuscripts in a deal to make some of the Catholic Church’s most historic documents available online.

The Vatican Apostolic Library says it hopes Thursday’s announced agreement with Tokyo-based NTT DATA Corp. would protect fragile manuscripts for perusal by scholars worldwide.

NTT DATA said it would digitize 3,000 manuscripts totaling 1.5 million pages over the next four years in a contract worth 18 million euros ($22.6 million)....