A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources
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Drama Editions:Call for Reviews (German)
Call for Reviews auf Englisch Das Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik (IDE) lädt Wissenschaftler*innen ein, Rezensionen für eine Sonderausgabe von RIDE: A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources einzureichen. Diese widmet sich digitalen Editionen dramatischer Texte und verwandter … Drama Editions: Call for Reviews (German) Read More »
Call for Reviews auf Englisch Das Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik (IDE) lädt Wissenschaftler*innen ein, Rezensionen für eine Sonderausgabe von RIDE: A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources einzureichen. Diese widmet sich digitalen Editionen dramatischer Texte und verwandter theaterspezifischer Materialien. Die computerunterstützte Analyse dramatischer Texte zieht bereits seit geraumer Zeit wissenschaftliche Aufmerksamkeit auf sich. Dieses anhaltende Interesse hat nicht nur den akademischen Diskurs belebt, sondern auch zur Entwicklung und systematischen Organisation digitaler Sammlungen von Dramen geführt. Dabei stehen diese Bemühungen in engem Zusammenhang mit allgemeinen Entwicklungen in den Digital Humanities und insbesondere mit dem Bereich der Computational Literary Studies, in dem die Entstehung der Computational Drama Analysis ein spezialisiertes Forschungsfeld hervorgebracht hat, welches sich mit der Modellierung, Analyse und Interpretation von Dramen mithilfe digitaler Methoden befasst. Ein Grund für das anhaltende und wachsende Interesse liegt unterdessen in der besonderen Natur dramatischer Texte selbst. Wie Melanie Andresen und Nils Reiter in der Einleitung zu ihrem gleichnamigen Sammelband feststellen: „Compared to other literary genres, dramatic texts have unique characteristics that make them both well-suited and challenging for quantitative and formal methods“ (Andresen and Reiter 2024). Im Bereich der digitalen Editionen sind wissenschaftliche Editionen von Theaterstücken jedoch vergleichsweise selten, und sowohl aus methodischer als auch aus konzeptioneller Sicht haben Editionen von Dramen bislang nur wenig kritische Aufmerksamkeit erfahren. Dramen sind per Definition performative Texte, die für die Aufführung auf der Bühne konzipiert wurden, durch die Interaktion mit dem Publikum geprägt sind und tief in die institutionellen und kulturellen Rahmenbedingungen des Theaters eingebettet sind. Ihre Überlieferung und Interpretation ist daher besonders dynamisch und vielschichtig. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde auch darauf hingewiesen, dass „dramatic texts are (often, not always) intended to be performed on stage“ – was „adds an additional layer to the text that is very difficult to access computationally, as a reader’s experience may drastically differ from that of an audience in a live theater“ (Andresen and Reiter 2024). Genau diese Eigenschaft macht dramatische Texte nun jedoch zu idealen Kandidaten für digital unterstützte Editionsmethoden. Digitale Editionen sind ihrer Natur nach in der Lage, multidimensionale und medienreiche Zugänge zu Texten zu bieten. Sie können die vielschichtige Komplexität dramatischer Werke auf eine Weise sichtbar machen, die Druckeditionen nicht leisten können, und eignen sich daher besonders zur Bewältigung der spezifischen editorischen Herausforderungen von Dramen. Trotz dieses Potenzials wurde bisher wenig Orientierung dazu geboten, wie das Drama als Gattung in der digitalen wissenschaftlichen Edition am besten behandelt werden kann; weder in Bezug auf editorische Methodik noch in der Erkundung der Theatralität von Stücken durch visuelle Gestaltung oder Interface-Design. Diese Sonderausgabe soll sich dieser Lücke annehmen, indem sie exemplarische Editionspraktiken hervorhebt, gattungsspezifische Kodierungs- und Präsentationsstrategien ausweist und zur Standardisierung und Weiterentwicklung dieses sich herausbildenden Bereichs beiträgt. Rezensent*innen sind eingeladen, Editionen in einer der folgenden Kategorien zu besprechen: i. Editionen dramatischer Texte: Digitale wissenschaftliche Editionen, die sich ausschließlich auf Theaterstücke konzentrieren. ii. Multigattungs- oder autorenzentrierte Editionen: Editionen, die dramatische Texte neben anderen literarischen Gattungen wie Prosa oder Lyrik enthalten. Diese können entweder mit einem Fokus auf die dramatischen Bestandteile oder in einer vergleichenden Analyse editorischer Praktiken über Gattungsgrenzen hinweg bewertet werden. iii. Editionen von Dokumenten aus dem Kontext Theater: Digitale Editionen von Materialien wie Regiebüchern, Probennotizen und Theaterzetteln, die etwa Produktions- und/oder Aufführungskontexte dramatischer Werke beleuchten. Neben den allgemeinen Kriterien für die Rezension digitaler Editionen, wie sie im Catalog of Criteria des IDE formuliert sind, sollten Rezensionen unter anderem die Verwendung von Kodierungsstandards (z. B. das TEI-P5-Drama-Modul), die Tiefe und Präzision der Annotationen, die Qualität des kritischen Apparats (sofern vorhanden) und das Vorhandensein von Funktionen, die die Nutzerinteraktion mit dem Text fördern, bewerten. Hinweise zur Einreichung Bevor Sie eine Rezension verfassen, bitten wir potenzielle Rezensent*innen darum, uns vorab per E-Mail an ride-drama@i-d-e.de zu kontaktieren. Bitte geben Sie dabei die Edition an, die Sie rezensieren möchten, sowie eine kurze Angabe Ihrer institutionellen Anbindung und Ihres Fachgebiets. Dies dient dazu, Doppelrezensionen und mögliche Interessenkonflikte zu vermeiden. Wir empfehlen zudem, vorab die Liste der derzeit bei RIDE in Rezension befindlichen, d. h. nicht zur Auswahl stehenden Projekte zu konsultieren, die unter folgendem Link einsehbar ist: https://ride.i-d-e.de/reviewers/projects-currently-under-review/. Frist für Einreichungen ist der 31. Oktober 2025. Die Einreichungsfrist wurde auf ein Open-Ended-Format umgestellt. Die Beiträge werden im Laufe des Jahres 2026 im Rahmen eines Rolling Release fortlaufend veröffentlicht. Herausgeber der Ausgabe ist Erik Renz (Universität Rostock). Rezensionen können auf Deutsch oder Englisch verfasst werden. Bitte reichen Sie Ihre Rezension als bearbeitbare Textdatei ein, vorzugsweise im DOCX-Format, um die spätere Konvertierung in TEI zu erleichtern. Jeder Beitrag muss eine kurze Zusammenfassung auf Englisch enthalten – unabhängig davon, in welcher Sprache der Haupttext verfasst ist. Bilder sind als separate PNG-Dateien einzureichen; im Text sollten an den entsprechenden Stellen Platzhalter (z. B. bild-1.png) eingefügt werden. Alle Autor*innen werden gebeten, sich vor Einreichung mit den RIDE Writing Guidelines and Submission Guidelines vertraut zu machen. Bei der endgültigen Einreichung ist außerdem ein RIDE-Fragebogen auszufüllen, der dem Typ der rezensierten Ressource entspricht. Ein spezieller Fragebogen für digitale Editionen findet sich hier: https://ride.i-d-e.de/data/questionnaires/. RIDE wurde 2014 gegründet und bietet seit über einem Jahrzehnt eine Plattform zur Begutachtung digitaler wissenschaftlicher Editionen. Die Zeitschrift ist Open Access; Rezensionen erscheinen im HTML- und PDF-Format und können zusätzlich als TEI-Datei heruntergeladen werden. Ziel von RIDE ist es, Rezensionen zu veröffentlichen, die dem Qualitätsniveau wissenschaftlicher Fachartikel entsprechen. Alle Beiträge durchlaufen daher ein double-blind Peer-Review-Verfahren. Sämtliche Inhalte werden unter der CC BY 4.0-Lizenz veröffentlicht. Es fallen keine Gebühren für Einreichung, Bearbeitung oder Veröffentlichung an. Vorschläge für Rezensionen Im Folgenden finden Sie eine nicht abschließende, alphabetisch sortierte Liste digitaler Editionen, die im Rahmen der geplanten Ausgabe rezensiert werden könnten: Arthur Schnitzler digital: https://www.arthur-schnitzler.de/ August Wilhelm Ifflands dramaturgisches und administratives Archiv: https://iffland.bbaw.de/ Digital Renaissance Editions: https://digitalrenaissance.uvic.ca/ Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project: https://lemdo.uvic.ca/douai/ Grabbe-Portal: http://www.grabbe-portal.de/ Internet Shakespeare Editions: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/ kleist-digital: https://kleist-digital.de/ Kritische Robert Walser-Ausgabe: Elektronische Edition (https://kritische-walser-ausgabe.ch/elektronische-edition-kwae/) MoEML Mayoral Shows: https://lemdo.uvic.ca/moms/ Nobody by Mary Robinson: http://romantic-circles.org/Editions/Publication/nobody-comedy-two-acts-1794 Ödön von Horváth – Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, Digitale Edition: https://gams.uni-graz.at/context:ohad Open Source Shakespeare: https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/ Queen’s Men Editions: https://lemdo.uvic.ca/qme/ Richard Brome Online: https://www.dhi.ac.uk/brome/ Robert Southey: Wat Tyler. A Dramatic Poem: https://web.archive.org/web/20220120171447/https://romantic-circles.org/editions/wattyler/ (Hinweis: Diese Edition ist nicht mehr online verfügbar, kann aber über das Internet Archive weiterhin eingesehen werden.) The Thomas Nashe Project: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/thethomasnasheproject/ Thomas Bernhard “Heldenplatz”: https://hp.ace.oeaw.ac.at/ Neben diesen Vorschlägen sind auch Rezensionen weiterer digitaler Editionen willkommen, sofern sie in das thematische Profil der Ausgabe passen. Bitte beachten Sie, dass bereits zur Rezension eingereichte Projekte nicht berücksichtigt werden können. Rezensionen zu Editionen, die in früheren Ausgaben von RIDE bereits besprochen wurden (z. B. die Faustedition), sind ebenfalls möglich – vorausgesetzt, der Fokus liegt explizit auf dramenspezifischen Aspekten sowie wesentlichen Weiterentwicklungen seit der ersten Besprechung.
Drama Editions:Call for Reviews (English)
Call for Reviews in German The Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) invites scholars to contribute reviews to a special issue of RIDE: A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources, focusing on digital scholarly editions of dramatic … Drama Editions: Call for Reviews (English) Read More »
Call for Reviews in German The Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) invites scholars to contribute reviews to a special issue of RIDE: A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources, focusing on digital scholarly editions of dramatic texts and related theatrical materials. Computer-assisted analysis of dramatic texts has been attracting scholarly attention for quite some time. This sustained interest has not only fueled academic discourse but also led to the development and systematic organization of digital collections of dramatic texts. These efforts are closely aligned with broader trends in the Digital Humanities, and more specifically with the field of Computational Literary Studies, where the emergence of ‘Computational Drama Analysis’ has established a focused research area concerned with modeling, analyzing, and interpreting drama through computational methods. Thereby, one reason for the continuing and growing interest lies in the unique nature of dramatic texts themselves. As Melanie Andresen and Nils Reiter note in the introduction to their eponymous anthology: “Compared to other literary genres, dramatic texts have unique characteristics that make them both well-suited and challenging for quantitative and formal methods” (Andresen and Reiter 2024). Within the domain of Digital Editing, however, scholarly editions of plays are relatively rare, and from both methodological and conceptual standpoints, editions of drama have received comparatively little critical engagement. Plays are inherently performative texts, designed for live performance, shaped by audience interaction, and deeply embedded in the institutional and cultural frameworks of the theater. Their transmission and interpretation are, therefore, uniquely dynamic and multifaceted. On this point—that “dramatic texts are (often, not always) intended to be performed on stage”—it was also noted that this “adds an additional layer to the text that is very difficult to access computationally, as a reader’s experience may drastically differ from that of an audience in a live theater” (Andresen and Reiter 2024). Yet this very quality makes dramatic texts ideal candidates for digitally supported editorial methods. Digital editions—by their very nature—are equipped to offer multidimensional and media-rich approaches to texts. They can reveal the layered complexity of dramatic works in ways that print editions cannot, making them especially well-suited for addressing the specific editorial challenges posed by drama. Despite this potential, the field has so far offered little guidance on how best to approach drama as a genre in digital scholarly editing, neither in terms of editorial methodology nor in exploring the theatricality of plays through visual or interface design. To address this gap, this special issue aims to highlight exemplary editing practices, examine genre-specific encoding and presentation strategies, and contribute to the standardization and further development of this emerging area. Reviewers are invited to evaluate editions within one of the following categories: i. Editions of dramatic texts: Digital scholarly editions that focus exclusively on plays. ii. Multigenre or author-centric editions: Editions that include dramatic texts alongside other literary genres, such as prose or poetry. These may be reviewed either with a focus on the dramatic components specifically or through a comparative analysis of editorial practices across genres within the same project. iii. Editions of theatrical materials: Digital editions of materials such as promptbooks, rehearsal notes, and playbills, which illuminate the production and performance contexts of dramatic works. Besides general criteria for reviewing digital editions, as formulated in the Catalog of Criteria by the IDE, reviews should assess, among other aspects, the use of encoding standards (e.g., the TEI P5 Drama Module), the depth and precision of annotations, the quality of the critical apparatus (if present), and the presence of features that enhance user engagement with the text. Submission Details Before beginning a review, prospective reviewers are kindly asked to contact us via email at ride-drama@i-d-e.de, indicating the edition they wish to review and providing a brief statement of their affiliation and area of expertise. This helps avoid duplicate reviews and potential conflicts of interest. We also encourage contributors to consult the list of projects currently under review, available at: https://ride.i-d-e.de/reviewers/projects-currently-under-review/. The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2025. The submission deadline has been changed to an open-ended format. Accepted articles will be published on a rolling basis throughout 2026. The issue is edited by Erik Renz (University of Rostock). Reviews may be written in English or German. Please submit your review as an editable text file, preferably in DOCX format, to facilitate conversion into TEI. Each submission must include a brief abstract in English, regardless of the language of the main text. Images should be provided as separate PNG files, with clearly marked placeholders in the text (e.g., picture-1.png). All contributors should consult the RIDE writing guidelines and submission guidelines before submitting a review. Upon final submission, authors are required to complete a RIDE questionnaire corresponding to the type of resource under review. A dedicated questionnaire for scholarly editions is available at: https://ride.i-d-e.de/data/questionnaires/. Founded in 2014, RIDE has provided for over a decade a platform for evaluating digital scholarly editions. It is an open-access journal; reviews are published in HTML and PDF and can also be downloaded in TEI format. RIDE aims to publish reviews that meet the standards of peer-reviewed journal articles. Therefore, all submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process to ensure academic quality. All published content will be released under the CC BY 4.0 license. There are no fees associated with submission, processing, or publication. Suggestions for Reviews The following is a non-exhaustive, alphabetical list of digital editions that may be suitable for review within the context of the planned issue: Arthur Schnitzler digital: https://www.arthur-schnitzler.de/ August Wilhelm Ifflands dramaturgisches und administratives Archiv: https://iffland.bbaw.de/ Digital Renaissance Editions: https://digitalrenaissance.uvic.ca/ Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project: https://lemdo.uvic.ca/douai/ Grabbe-Portal: http://www.grabbe-portal.de/ Internet Shakespeare Editions: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/ kleist-digital: https://kleist-digital.de/ Kritische Robert Walser-Ausgabe: Elektronische Edition (https://kritische-walser-ausgabe.ch/elektronische-edition-kwae/) MoEML Mayoral Shows: https://lemdo.uvic.ca/moms/ Nobody by Mary Robinson: http://romantic-circles.org/Editions/Publication/nobody-comedy-two-acts-1794 Ödön von Horváth: Historisch-kritische Ausgabe – Digitale Edition: https://gams.uni-graz.at/context:ohad Open Source Shakespeare: https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/ Queen’s Men Editions: https://lemdo.uvic.ca/qme/ Richard Brome Online: https://www.dhi.ac.uk/brome/ Robert Southey: Wat Tyler. A Dramatic Poem: https://web.archive.org/web/20220120171447/https://romantic-circles.org/editions/wattyler/ (Please note that this edition is no longer available online. However, it has been archived and can still be accessed via the Internet Archive.) The Thomas Nashe Project: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/thethomasnasheproject/ Thomas Bernhard “Heldenplatz”: https://hp.ace.oeaw.ac.at/ In addition to these suggestions, we welcome proposals for other editions, provided they align with the thematic scope of this issue. Please note that works currently under review are not eligible. Reviews of editions that have already been discussed in previous RIDE issues (e.g., the Faustedition) may also be submitted, provided that the focus—beyond any changes made since the first review—lies especially on drama-specific aspects of the edition.
Resource reviewed Title Gli anni della Cupola 1417–1436 Editors Margaret Haines URI http://archivio.operaduomo.fi.it/cupola/home.HTML Publication Date 2015 Date of last access 08.12.2024 Reviewer Name Pograri, Lucrezia Affiliation Università di Bologna Place Bologna, Italy Email lucrezia.pograri@studio.unibo.it Documentation Bibliographic description Is it easily … Factsheet Read More »
Resource reviewed Title Gli anni della Cupola 1417–1436 Editors Margaret Haines URI http://archivio.operaduomo.fi.it/cupola/home.HTML Publication Date 2015 Date of last access 08.12.2024 Reviewer Name Pograri, Lucrezia Affiliation Università di Bologna Place Bologna, Italy Email lucrezia.pograri@studio.unibo.it Documentation Bibliographic description Is it easily possible to describe the project bibliographically along the schema “responsible editors, publishing/hosting institution, year(s) of publishing”? (cf. Catalogue 1.2) Contributors Are the contributors (editors, institutions, associates) of the project fully documented? (cf. Catalogue 1.4) Contacts Does the project list contact persons? (cf. Catalogue 1.5) Selection Is the selection of materials of the project explicitly documented? (cf. Catalogue 2.1) Reasonability of the selection Is the selection by and large reasonable? (cf. Catalogue 2.1) Archiving of data (?) Choose yes if you have reason to believe that the archiving and long term sustainability of the data is cared for (e.g. because the data is part of a platform that cares for these aspects), even if the documentation makes no explicit statement about it. Does the documentation include information about the long term sustainability of the basic data (archiving of the data)? (cf. Catalogue 4.16) Aims Are the aims and purposes of the project explicitly documented? (cf. Catalogue 3.1) Methods Are the methods employed in the project explicitly documented? (cf. Catalogue 3.1) Data model Does the project document which data model (e.g. TEI) has been used and for what reason? (cf. Catalogue 3.7) Help Does the project offer help texts concerning the use of the project? (cf. Catalogue 4.15) Citation Does the project supply citation guidelines (i.e. how to cite the project or a part of it)? (cf. Catalogue 4.8) Completion Does the editon regard itself as a completed project (i.e. not promise further modifications and additions)? (cf. Catalogue 4.16) Institutional curation (?) Select yes, if there is either an explicit claim that continuous maintenance for the project is provided by some institution or you have strong reason to believe that this is the case, even if it is not explicitly claimed, otherwise select no. Does the project provide information about institutional support for the curation and sustainability of the project? (cf. Catalogue 4.16) Contents Previous edition Has the material been previously edited (in print or digitally)? (cf. Catalogue 2.2) Materials used Does the edition make use of these previous editions? (cf. Catalogue 2.2) Introduction Does the project offer an introduction to the subject-matter (the author(s), the work, its history, the theme, etc.) of the project? (cf. Catalogue 4.15) Bibliography Does the project offer a bibliography? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Commentary Does the project offer a scholarly commentary (e.g. notes on unclear passages, interpretation, etc.)? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Contexts Does the project include or link to external resources with contextual material? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Images Does the project offer images of digitised sources? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Image quality Does the project offer images of an acceptable quality? (cf. Catalogue 4.6) Transcriptions Is the text fully transcribed? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Text quality Does the project offer texts of an acceptable quality (typos, errors, etc.)? (cf. Catalogue 4.6) Indices Does the project feature compilations indices, registers or visualisations that offer alternative ways to access the material? (cf. Catalogue 4.5) Types of documents (?) Single manuscript: a single physical document or a series of documents belonging together, like a multi volume manuscript or a series of notebooks. Single work: a single work, e.g. Plato’s Laches, which might be transmitted in multiple manuscripts. Collection of texts: several abstract texts across the documents of their transmission, e.g Aristotle’s Physics and Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Collected works: a collection of several works of one or several authors, e.g. the works of Plato. Papers: a collection of personal or family documents or personal papers. Archival holding: the collection of a repository. Charters: texts documenting a legal fact by using a special form supporting its validity, e.g. the Magna Carta. Letters: letters of one or several authors. Diary: one or several diaries of one or several authors. Which kinds of documents are at the basis of the project? (cf. Catalogue 1.3 and 2.1) Single manuscript, Archival holding Document era (?) Classics: before 500 CE. Medieval: 501 CE until 1500 CE. Early modern: 1501 CE until 1800 CE. Modern: 1801 CE until today. What era(s) do the documents belong to? (cf. Catalogue 1.3 and 2.1) Medieval Subject Which perspective(s) do the editors take towards the edited material? How can the edition be classified in general terms? (cf. Catalogue 1.3) History, Philology / Literary Studies, Art History Spin-Offs (?) App: any application (for personal computer or mobile devices) apart from browsers with which the project can be accessed. Mobile: a browser-version adapted for mobile devices. PDF: the project or parts of as PDF files. Does the project offer any spin-offs? (cf. Catalogue 4.11) None Access modes Browse by (?) Structure: Select this if the project allows browsing by elements used to structure a text, e.g. chapters, sections, paragraphs, etc. Documents: Select this if the project offers to browse by individual source objects, e.g. by the individual letters in a letter-edition, the individual charters in a charter-edition, etc. Images: Select this if the project allows browsing by facsimile (e.g. through a gallery). By which categories does the project offer to browse the contents? (cf. Catalogue 4.3) Documents, Dates, Persons, Places Simple search Does the project offer a simple search? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Advanced search (?) Any search that offers more complex search than just a word or a phrase, e.g. boolean operators, wildcards, restricted search, etc. Does the project offer an advanced search? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Wildcard search (?) Any search that offers to substitute a defined set of possible characters by special characters, e.g. ‘king*’ searching for ‘king’, ‘kings’, ‘kingdom’, etc. Does the search support the use of wildcards? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Index (?) Select yes if it is possible to access an index of a search field, e.g. if the search field ‘author’ is present, a list of all authors the project contains is accessible. Does the search offer an index of the searched field? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Suggest functionalities (?) Any search that offers possible search as soon as the first characters are typed into the search field. Does the search offer autocompletion or suggest functionalities? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Help texts (?) Texts that explain how to use the search function, e.g. explanation of wildcard characters, operators, etc. Does the project offer help texts for the search? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Aims and methods Audience Who is the intended audience of the project? (cf. Catalogue 3.3) Scholars, Interested public Typology (?) Facsimile edition: Focuses on the visual layer of texts with additional information for access and understanding; no transcription. Archive edition: Focuses on the width of a work, the documents of its transmission, its context; aims at completeness. Documentary edition: Related to the school of “documentary editing”, focuses on the documents rather than on abstract texts; tries to give truthful representations of the documents with (often: diplomatic) transcription and additional information. Diplomatic edition: Focuses on the text (not the visual layer) of documents, tries to give a transcription as accurate as possible. Genetic edition: Focuses on the genesis of texts, usually on the level of microgenesis (within a document) sometimes on the level of macrogenesis (across documents). Work critical edition: Focuses on the (potentially: complete) work of an author, aims at completeness on the level of the abstract work (and what needs to be presented to accomplish this). Text critical edition: Focuses on the construction of a “best text” or definitive reading by means of textual criticism. Enriched edition: ’Enriched Edition’ describes digital representations of texts that put a particular emphasis on extracting information from the text, e.g. by elaborate indices, extensive comments and annotations on the content, linking of related information, or formal representation of content. Database edition: Transforms text and documents into structured data to capture the semantic information. Digital library: Provides a collection of scholarly material without the approach of critical engagement with single documents, texts, or works; or simple digital facsimiles; not a scholarly digital edition in the sense of the review criteria. Collection of texts: Textual representations without critical commentary, the application of textual criticism or paratexts that describe, explain or contextualize the texts; not a scholarly digital edition in the sense of the review criteria. Which type fits best for the reviewed project? (cf. Catalogue 3.3 and 5.1) Documentary edition Critical editing (?) Transmission examined: Attempt to establish the transmission of the text, the results of which are traditionally reflected in a Stemma Codicum. Palaeographic annotations: Accounts of the palaeographic dimension of a text. Normalization: The orthography has been normalised according to a chosen standard (e.g. ’seyn’ to ’sein’). Variants: Accounts of textual variants, i.e. textual differences between documents transmitting the same text. Emendation: Corrections or revisions have been applied to the text. Commentary notes: Comments regarding any of the phenomena mentioned before or other textual phenomena (not regarding the content). In how far is the text critically edited? (cf. Catalogue 3.6) Variants, Commentary notes XML Is the data encoded in XML? (cf. Catalogue 3.7) Standardized data model Is the project employing a standardized data model (e.g. TEI)? (cf. Catalogue 3.7) Types of text (?) Facsimiles: Any copy of historical documents. Diplomatic transcription: Transcription of the document taking account of features like spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, deletions, insertions, alterations, etc. Edited text: A reading text as constituted by the editor(s), based on procedures like recensio, examinatio, emendatio, correction, normalization, modernization etc. Translations: Any translations into languages different from that of the original text. Commentaries: Scholarly commentary on the content of the documents. Semantic data: Transformation of the text (e.g. an account book) into a database or representation of its content as RDF or the like. Which kinds or forms of text are presented? (cf. Catalogue 3.5.) Facsimiles, Diplomatic transcription, Commentaries Technical accessability Persistent identification (?) DOI: Digital Object Identifier according to the definition of The International DOI Foundation. The DOIs should be resolvable through http://doi.org/. ARK: Archival Resource Key according to the definition of the California Digital Library. An ARK URL contains the label: ‘ark’ after the URL’s hostname. URN: Uniform Resource Name using the urn: scheme. URNs always start with the label ’urn:’. PURL.ORG: Persistent Uniform Resource Locator using the PURL concept and administered by the Online Computer Library Centre. Persistent URLs: Choose this if the project promises permanent URLs or uses a local resolving system between URLs and underlying technical addresses but does not use any of the external services mentioned in the options. None: Choose this if no persistent identifiers and adressing system are used at all. Are there persistent identifiers and an addressing system for the edition and/or parts/objects of it and which mechanism is used to that end? (cf. Catalogue 4.8) None Interfaces Are there technical interfaces like OAI-PMH, REST etc., which allow the reuse of the data of the project in other contexts? (cf. Catalogue 4.9) None Open Access (?) Are the contents of the presentation freely accessible without subscription fee? Is the edition Open Access? Accessability of the basic data (?) The data from which the HTML or other spin-offs have been produced, e.g. the XML of a specific part of the project. If the basic data is only accessible as a download package containing the entire data, select ’no’ here. Is the basic data (e.g. the XML) of the project accessible for each part of the edition (e.g. for a page)? (cf. Catalogue 4.12) Download (?) Can the basic data be downloaded as a whole via HTTP- or FTP-Link, i.e. not only individual parts like the XML of a specific part of the project. Can the entire raw data of the project be downloaded (as a whole)? (cf. Catalogue 4.9) Reuse Can you use the data with other tools useful for this kind of content? (cf. Catalogue 4.9) Declaration of rights Are the rights to (re)use the content declared? (cf. Catalogue 4.13) License (?) CC0: Creative Commons license CC0 applied. CC-BY: Creative Commons license CC-BY applied. CC-BY-ND: Creative Commons license CC-BY-ND applied. CC-BY-NC: Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC applied. CC-BY-SA: Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA applied. CC-BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND applied. CC-BY-NC-SA: Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-SA applied. PDM: Work is in the Public Domain. Under what license are the contents released? (cf. Catalogue 4.13) CC-BY Personnel Editors Haines, Margaret Programmers Haines, Margaret
Gli anni della Cupola 1417–1436, Margaret Haines (ed.), 2015. http://archivio.operaduomo.fi.it/cupola/home.HTML (Last Accessed: 08.12.2024). Reviewed by Lucrezia Pograri (Università di Bologna), lucrezia.pograri@studio.unibo.it. || Abstract: This review critically evaluates Gli anni della cupola 1417–1436, the digital edition aiming to offer unprecedented access … Gli anni della Cupola 1417–1436 Read More »
Gli anni della Cupola 1417–1436, Margaret Haines (ed.), 2015. http://archivio.operaduomo.fi.it/cupola/home.HTML (Last Accessed: 08.12.2024). Reviewed by Lucrezia Pograri (Università di Bologna), lucrezia.pograri@studio.unibo.it. || Abstract: This review critically evaluates Gli anni della cupola 1417–1436, the digital edition aiming to offer unprecedented access to over 1.8 million archival records from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore archive, documenting the construction of Brunelleschi’s famous dome of the Florence cathedral, and its civic context. Featuring high-quality reproductions and textual transcriptions of original documents, it facilitates in-depth investigations into topics like workforce management and financial administration, positioning itself as an invaluable tool for scholars and historians. This review assesses the project’s alignment with FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) and its effectiveness as a scholarly resource. Recommendations focus on improving data model interoperability and adopting robust preservation strategies to ensure long-term accessibility. By addressing these areas, the review underscores the project’s significance in advancing Digital Humanities and historical research, while proposing enhancements to strengthen its role as a key resource for studying one of history’s most iconic architectural feats. Introduction and General Parameters 1Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence, stands as a testament to the artistic and architectural achievements of the Italian Renaissance. The term complex of Santa Maria del Fiore refers not only to the cathedral itself but also to the adjacent structures that form an integral part of Florence’s religious and civic identity, including the Baptistery of San Giovanni and Giotto’s Bell Tower. At the heart of this ensemble is Filippo Brunelleschi’s1 dome, a hallmark of Renaissance architecture and an engineering marvel of its time. This groundbreaking landmark achievement redefined the possibilities of architectural design in the fifteenth century. Its innovative herringbone brickwork and self-supporting construction not only resolved the structural challenges of spanning such a vast space but also symbolized the intellectual and artistic ambitions of the Renaissance. The Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore – founded in the thirteenth century – is the institution2 historically responsible for overseeing the cathedral’s construction and maintenance. It remains active today, focusing on the preservation, restoration, and documentation of the cathedral and its extensive heritage. Its archive holds a wealth of records that illuminate the administrative, financial, technical and artistic dimensions of the cathedral’s history, offering significant insight into the processes that shaped one of the most celebrated monuments of Western architecture (Ackerman 1966, King 2000). 2The project Gli Anni della Cupola 1417–1436 offers an extensive collection of documentary sources from the archive of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. This period is notably significant due to the design and construction of Brunelleschi’s dome. Directed by chief curator Margaret Haines3 and vice curator Gabriella Battista and published by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, the project (fig. 1) serves as a comprehensive resource, offering historical documents, critical transcriptions, structured indices, and an image archive of original manuscripts. 3Beyond its archival function, the primary mission of Gli Anni della Cupola is to provide scholars, historians, and the general public with accessible and high-quality digital representations of these records. The scholarly objectives include facilitating advanced research, preserving historical materials, and disseminating knowledge related to the construction of Brunelleschi’s dome and the wider historical context of the period. This mission aligns with broader trends in Digital Humanities, which emphasize accessibility, preservation, and interdisciplinary research (Schreibman et al. 2004), ensuring that this invaluable corpus remains a dynamic and enduring resource for historical inquiry. 4Gli Anni della Cupola represents a sophisticated integration of a digital archive and a scholarly digital edition. It is presented both as an image archive4 and as “a first, substantial electronic edition of its [Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore’s] historical sources.”5 Beyond serving as a repository – like traditional archives – it incorporates a rich set of annotations, functionalities, and contextual layers that align it more closely with the characteristics of an SDE. This dual approach, which combines archival integrity with in-depth scholarly analysis, highlights its role as a dynamic research resource and reflects the evolving nature of Digital Humanities projects in the digital age (Young 2016, Robinson 2013). Fig. 1: Gli Anni della Cupola website homepage. Italian version. 5This initiative has brought together numerous contributors in a collaborative effort. Since the project’s inception, the Institute of Computational Linguistics at the CNR in Pisa has played a crucial role in providing informatics support, notably through Eugenio Picchi’s development of the DBT software6, which formed the technical foundation for the project’s advancement (Haines 2002). A partnership with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin enabled the final online publication of the project. Financial backing has come mainly from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, as well as external grants from the Getty Grant Program, Assessorato della Cultura della Regione Toscana, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, along with contributions from individuals like John Treacy and Darcy F. Beyer (Haines 2011). 6Building on these foundational contributions, the project’s bibliographic information is displayed on the homepage of the SDE website, although no explicit citation suggestion is given for the whole SDE. Detailed information about the editors, collaborators, and responsible institutions is available in the “Staff and Collaborators” section, while information about the project sponsors and financial supporters can be found in the “Sponsor” section. 7The first online publication of Gli Anni della Cupola dates back to 2001, when the work-in-progress was initially made accessible on the web. From 2001 to 2012, the project was hosted on a section of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore complex’s website. As stated on the “Copyright” page of the edition’s website, the URL was updated in 2013 to its current address: http://archivio.operaduomo.fi.it/cupola/. Additionally, the project can be accessed via the MPIWG servers at http://duomo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de. Content of the Edition 8The digital edition provides a diverse array7 of content types, including high-quality images, transcriptions of original texts, indices, scholarly comments, contextual materials, and a comprehensive bibliography. The content is organized into three main branches: Textual Archive: This section features over 21,000 fully transcribed documents8 from the Florentine archive, serving as the basic unit of the SDE. To facilitate document retrieval, the project includes richly articulated indices of names, places, and institutions, as well as analyses of content categorized by topics. Terms found in the texts are recorded and grouped into accessible glossaries, and reference tools such as document summaries, hypertext links to related sources, and indices of documentary and chronological references are provided. Although indexing and analysis are carried out in standard modern Italian, they remain faithful to the Latin diction of the original texts, preserving their linguistic and historical richness. The selection of sources and documents for Gli Anni della Cupola follows specific criteria aligned with the project’s goal of illuminating the historical context and construction process of Brunelleschi’s dome. The chosen timeframe, 1417–1436, represents a pivotal period in the cathedral’s history, supported by a relatively abundant body of documentation. Priority is given to documents that illustrate practical, administrative, and artistic aspects of the project, such as materials procurement and logistics, labour management, artistic commissions, financial transactions, and the Opera’s interactions with civic authorities. Image Archive: This branch provides high-quality photographic reproductions of the original records, with an internal tool for intelligent viewing of photographs. A more detailed description can be found later in this review, in the “Method and Representation of Documents and Texts” section. Designed to simulate the experience of handling the original manuscripts, these photographic reproductions reconstruct a virtually restored archive, also mitigating the extensive damage caused by the 1966 Florence flood (Haines 2002). It provides a comprehensive consultation experience, granting access to all photographic materials used in the edition. Studies Library: This branch functions as a scholarly journal for the SDE, offering an open-access platform for original research. It features interactive HTML and downloadable PDF versions of essays, each equipped with a backlink system that allows users to navigate seamlessly between articles and related archival documents. Through these resources, users can explore the broader implications of the archival materials. 9Such a structure enables effective cross-referencing between visual and textual data, enhancing the exploration of topics such as the architectural, social, and economic aspects of the cathedral’s construction and maintenance. To assist users in navigating this extensive collection, the website’s left side navigation bar features a “Project description” section, detailing the nature and development of the project, and a “Guide to consultation” section, outlining the general organization of the content and providing instructions on how to use the digital resources effectively. However, even with these navigational aids, new users may still face challenges navigating the site, particularly if they lack prior knowledge of the project’s scope and content. This issue is discussed at greater length in the “Interface and Usability” section below. 10While the digital edition offers extensive coverage, some relevant content is currently missing. Notably, documents related to the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore from the archival collection of its parent institution, Arte della Lana, have not yet been included. Given that Arte della Lana played a crucial role in the governance and financial oversight of the Opera – such as electing its members, managing budgets, and making decisions on sensitive matters – integrating these documents would provide a more comprehensive view of the administration and decision-making processes involved in the Cathedral’s construction (Haines 2002). 11The curatorial team acknowledges these omissions in the current corpus and justifies them based on the project’s current focus on documents directly related to the construction and decoration of Brunelleschi’s dome. Documents concerning broader administrative, financial, or legal matters – such as those managed by the Arte della Lana – have not yet been fully integrated, as their relevance extends beyond the immediate scope of the current edition (Haines 2002). There is hope that these additional sources will be incorporated in the future, further enhancing the digital edition’s scope and offering a fuller understanding of the institutional and civic dynamics that shaped this monumental architectural project. History of the Edition and Project’s Achievements 12This project is deeply rooted in a long tradition of scholarly editions, reflecting over a century of archival work related to the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. The printed tradition began with the work of Cesare Guasti, particularly through the two anthologies he edited, which focused on the dome (Guasti 1857) and the construction of the cathedral and bell tower (Guasti 1887). These anthologies form part of a larger project aimed at documenting the history of the documents related to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, encompassing both the artistic monuments and the administrative history of the Opera factory, managed by Arte della Lana. The legacy of this ambitious work has continued through the 20th century, with scholars such as Giovanni Poggi and Ugo Procacci paving the way for Margaret Haines and the current digital edition (see also Saalman 1980, Haines 2002, Giacomelli and Settesoldi 1993). 13The project’s modern phase began in 1994, as part of the initiatives marking the seventh centenary of the cathedral’s foundation. Gli anni della Cupola was conceived as a pilot project for a digital edition of the Opera’s archival sources, featuring a structured system of indexes designed for guided research. This early phase was developed in collaboration with Eugenio Picchi, the creator of the DBT (Textual Database) system, at the Institute of Computational Linguistics in Pisa, with advice from Umberto Parrini of the Center for Computer Science Research in Cultural Heritage at the Scuola Normale of Pisa. This partnership successfully combined DBT’s textual management capabilities with a newly designed logical structure for data access, creating an immediate and integrated database. The results of this pilot phase were presented to the public in 1997 (Haines 2002). 14Following this pilot experience, the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore decided to support the project’s continuation for the period 1417–1436. The initial goal was to create a textual database accessible at the Opera Archive and to produce a CD edition upon project completion. However, with the advent of the Internet, the project evolved significantly (Haines 2002). 15As highlighted in the “Project description” section of the SDE website, the Internet era led to a fruitful collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. This partnership has been guided by Jürgen Renn, the director of Berlin Institute, and Peter Damerow, a renowned philosopher, mathematician, and educational researcher. Between 1999 and 2000, science historian Jochen Büttner and programmer Bernd Wischnewski undertook the task of transforming ASCII archive files into the SGML-XML format, aiming to ensure the long-term stability and online accessibility of the data. To facilitate online dissemination, the Max Planck Institute employed cost-effective memory expansion to develop extensive HTML pages, compatible with all Internet browsers. Between 2000 and early 2001, Büttner, in close collaboration with the Florence editorial team, created a static yet functional HTML representation of the edition. The HTML interface presents options as lists, menus, and glossaries, guiding researchers through the archive’s content. In 2001, the project’s initial Web-release featured approximately 5,000 documents, hosted on both the Opera del Duomo’s and the Berlin Institute’s servers. The digital edition has since undergone numerous revisions, with a major relaunch and last update in 2015. 16Integrating photographic reproductions initially presented challenges due to technical limitations and maintenance issues. The editors did not plan to include photographic reproductions of the original manuscripts, given the constraints of early computing and the legibility issues faced by many codices, exacerbated by severe damage from the flood that inundated Florence in 1966. However, solutions for photographic integration were developed over time (Haines 2002): 1958 microfilms: Black-and-white microfilms of 19 out of 31 codices were found in the archive and digitized. According to the subpage “Information about the image” on the SDE website, in 1996, the Perugia-based PDS company scanned the microfilm, while the Parallelo company in Florence processed the images by cropping and separating them into 1,634 individual files. The Opera archive’s staff utilized printouts from these reels to supplement visual examination, employing ultraviolet lamps to enhance the readability of the most faded passages. Collaboration with Fachhochschule of Cologne in 1999: The team from the Fachhochschule Department of Conservation of Manuscripts used advanced image processing and experimental techniques inspired by police applications to photograph and virtually restore damaged codices that lacked previous photographic documentation. Concurrently, the existing microfilms were digitized and reformatted for easier consultation. 17The integration of these photographic solutions has greatly enhanced the project’s accountability and comprehensiveness, enabling high-quality representations of the archival documents for researchers and scholars. High-quality photographic images of the manuscripts’ folios are hosted on Digilib (Digital Document Library), a platform developed through the ECHO (European Cultural Heritage Online) initiative after 2002. Spearheaded by the MIPWG under the direction of Robert Casties, in collaboration with Universität Bern and other institutions within the Humanities section of the Max Planck Society, the software was initially registered as open source on BerliOS in 2002. Originally designed for the Archimedes project, Digilib enabled the presentation of digitized images and transcriptions of historical texts. Over time, this tool has been adopted by numerous projects within the Max Planck Society, continuing to play a pivotal role in the presentation of digitized images and other materials, making a significant contribution to the Digital Humanities field (Schraut 2008). Method and Representation of Documents and Texts 18As a result of the sustained efforts of all the project’s collaborators, the digital edition features a vast textual archive enriched with high-resolution images of manuscript folios and their corresponding critical transcriptions. At the core of the SDE’s methodology is the treatment of each document as a unique primary source. This approach reflects a commitment to a philological and document-centric editorial approach, emphasizing the physical characteristics and historical context of each document and avoiding any abstraction or idealized version of the text. Detailed instructions on functionalities, search methods, and the edition’s philological aspects are available in the “Guide” section in the vertical navigation bar. Fig. 2: The document entry page of the record with ID o0202001.128b. 19The fundamental unit of the digital scholarly edition is the document entry page (fig. 2). It is organized into two main sections: Essential metadata and textual transcription: This section includes metadata identification of the record – such as identification code, date, summary, title, archival physical collocation –, a detailed transcription of the original text, and editorial annotations. Analysis of the document: This section features indices of names, roles, places, institutions, indexed topics, and documentary and chronological references, including hypertext links between related documents, citations within the documents, and a bibliography of previous editions of the texts. 20The SDE follows a diplomatic approach in its transcriptions, prioritizing fidelity to the original manuscripts by closely replicating the text’s physical and linguistic features. As defined by Pierazzo, a diplomatic edition “reproduces as many of the characteristics of the original document as the medium permits or as the project requires” (2011). In line with this principle, the SDE’s transcriptions preserve original spellings, punctuation, and abbreviations, even if they deviate from contemporary norms. The textual layout, including line breaks and marginalia, is also carefully reproduced, and editorial notes provide additional context on variations and amendments without altering the original text itself. Transcriptions are based on single witnesses, ensuring a precise and trustworthy representation of the source material. Fig. 3: The transcription of the record o0201086.049b, with editorial annotations in the “NOTES”. 21For instance, by considering the record with the ID “o0201086.049b”9 (fig. 3) it can be observed that the digital text closely mirrors the source document. It preserves specificities such as the abbreviation Nobiles viri10, followed by a list of noblemen’s names, each denoted with their full titles and family associations – e.g., Gualterius Iohannis de Biliottis, Tomasius Bartolomei de Barbadoris, and others. The transcription also retains Latin conjunctions and phrase structures, such as utiliter peragendis and dato, misso, facto et celebrato, reflecting the linguistic style and formal qualities of the original document. The initials in “Transcription” and “Analysis” entries identify the scholars responsible for the transcription and analysis of the texts, specifically: Gabriella Battista (gb), Rolf Bagemihl (rb), Margaret Haines (mh), Patrizia Salvadori (ps), Lucia Sandri (ls).11 22Editorial notes accompanying the transcription further provide insight into marginalia and textual amendments. For instance, note 1 identifies the deletion of the word prius, while note 3 indicates the addition of the phrase in civitate Venetiarum in the margin. These annotations provide essential context, guiding readers through changes made by the scribe or later editors and offering a comprehensive view of both the text’s material and historical dimensions. This method ensures that users have access to an accurate reproduction of the original text, complemented by annotations that illuminate its evolution and the editor’s decisions, thus reflecting the SDE’s dedication to preserving and presenting the manuscript’s historical integrity. 23The SDE does not prioritize any manuscript over others; rather, it treats all documents with equal importance, reflecting an egalitarian approach. No attempt is made to create a preferred or authoritative version of the texts. Instead, the focus is on accurately representing the original state and variations of each document. 24The role of digital images is pivotal in the SDE. As mentioned earlier, the photographic images of the records are hosted on the external platform Digilib, which provides tools for zooming, scaling, and framing images. Users can access the images in the SDE via the red “view image” button on any document entry page (fig. 4), which opens the digital facsimile (fig. 5) and allows for a comparison of the transcription with the original manuscript. For detailed instructions on using the dual-level viewing and image management environment, users should refer to the “Image Viewing” section in the “Guide” page of the site. Fig. 4: The “view image” button to access the facsimile of the record o0201086.049b. Fig. 5: Example of the facsimile displayed with the image viewing tool. 25However, users may occasionally encounter broken links to some images within the SDE. This issue can occur if specific photographic files are unavailable due to technical errors or if there are discrepancies between the image URLs and the files hosted on the server. Such broken links can hinder users’ ability to view or compare certain manuscript folios. Additionally, server-side errors, such as proxy errors12– where the proxy server fails to connect due to input/output issues – can further restrict access to the digital images and the Digilib platform, thereby limiting full engagement with the primary sources. Criticism, Indexing, Commentary 26Gli Anni della Cupola adopts a comprehensive approach to textual criticism, combining digital transcriptions, indexing strategies, and editorial annotations to deepen users’ engagement with and understanding of its texts. The project is designed to support rigorous scholarly analysis and research by providing robust tools for navigating and interpreting a vast corpus of historical documents. Fig. 6: The left navbar displays the 11 categories of subjects in the guided research. 27The SDE’s indexing strategies provide an intricate and multifaceted approach to document retrieval, accommodating various research needs by organizing access through indices of names, places, institutions, and topics. The principal modes of access, available from the left navigation bar, are organized into two primary approaches: alphabetical indices of full item strings and alphabetical lists of single words contained within the items. The alphabetical indices of full strings include names of people, roles, places, and institutions, allowing users to explore documents by complete terms, categorized by the original variety found in the documents, including patronymics and role specifications. These indices maintain the diversity of names as they appear in the sources, normalized only for spelling. Within this framework, the SDE indices enable targeted searches based on key components of name strings – surnames, nicknames, and provenances – offering enriched research possibilities by isolating these critical elements for direct interrogation. The alphabetical lists of single words provide access to documents by individual words within the names, roles, and places categories, such as all terms present in a name, role or place. For instance, places are arranged hierarchically, descending from the main locality (e.g., “Firenze, popolo di San Lorenzo” for the parish of San Lorenzo in Florence), while the places of origin for persons are indexed under surnames. The indexing of institutions also follows this model, allowing searches by full institution names or by single words within those names. Additionally, the SDE employs guided research for more structured queries across eleven recurring categories – such as normative dispositions, finances, personnel, destinations, objects, and materials – each further subdivided to enable nuanced exploration (fig. 6). 28This method provides users with hierarchical paths to browse specific texts based on source terminology, or to perform word searches within these texts for more refined results. The integration of both guided research and word search modes across topics like real estate, iconography, events, transportation, and other noteworthy areas of interest, ensures comprehensive access to the Opera’s records, facilitating detailed scholarly inquiries by leveraging both structured categorizations and diverse research pathways. However, despite these powerful indexing strategies, the absence of a search box in the interface significantly limits the potential for efficient data retrieval. This limitation is addressed in detail in the section “Additional features”. 29The inclusion of commentary is another essential feature of the project. The SDE offers critical insights into the nuances of the manuscripts and their interpretations. The commentaries in “Notes” address textual variants, contextualize the documents within their historical frameworks, and provide explanations to help users navigate the complexities of the texts. Meanwhile, the document summaries, or regesti, provide concise descriptions of the documents, enhancing the accessibility and usability of the archive. These summaries are visualized as complete item strings and are arranged alphabetically by the first word, facilitating quick identification and navigation. Composed in Italian, they serve as a tool for the rapid identification of the basic type and content of individual documents, guiding users directly to the original texts for more in-depth analysis. They do not replace the documents but rather complement the indexing system by providing a quick reference that aids in navigating the extensive collection. Data Modelling and Technical Infrastructure 30The digital edition employs a tailored approach to data modeling, opting to deviate from established standards like the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) Guidelines to better address the specific needs of the project. At the project’s inception in 1994, technical standards such as XML were not yet available, and the decision was made to develop a custom solution, resulting in the creation of the DBT software by Picchi13 (Haines 2002). 31However, as the development of the SDE progressed, particularly between 1999 and 2001 when the collaboration with the MPIWG began, the acquired data in ASCII format was converted to XML, and an HTML version was published (Haines 2002). Despite these advancements and a subsequent update in 2015, the project has not integrated with up-to-date best practices. This may be due to the unique challenges posed by managing a large and diverse collection of historical documents, which vary significantly in legibility, preservation state, and format. However, this deviation from standard practices has notable drawbacks. The absence of a formal schema, such as an ODD (One Document Does-it-all) file in TEI, means the data modelling lacks essential formal documentation, hindering transparency and complicating reuse or adaptation by other scholars or projects (Burnard and Bauman 2013). 32As a result of these custom decisions, the edition relies on a combination of HTML for display and XML for text encoding, integrated with a database management system for structuring and managing textual data. While this approach provides flexibility to accommodate a wide range of document types, it raises concerns about interoperability and long-term digital preservation. The reliance on proprietary formats and bespoke solutions limits the edition’s potential to integrate with other SDEs, digital archives, and scholarly tools. Additionally, the edition does not follow best practices for image delivery, such as the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), nor does it implement principles for sharing machine-readable, interlinked data on the web. 33In contrast, adopting XML/TEI offers a structured, machine-readable markup for textual documents that supports advanced querying, analysis, and cross-referencing. This also facilitates integration with the broader ecosystem of semantic web applications, enhancing data sharing and linking across platforms. Implementing frameworks such as RDF (Resource Description Framework) would allow for the representation of data as a graph, making it easier to integrate information from diverse sources and enabling the creation of linked open data (LOD), which can be shared across different systems. The adoption of LOD standards would ensure long-term sustainability and interoperability by connecting data across various platforms and domains. 34Moreover, implementing standards such as IIIF would greatly improve the edition’s image delivery capabilities, supporting high-quality, high-fidelity images, which are crucial for digital archives focused on images. The integration of JSON or JSON-LD would further align the edition with modern linked open data initiatives, providing a lightweight method for structuring data that is compatible with contemporary web technologies and allowing for easier integration with other digital resources. Interface and Usability Fig. 7: Sample HTML code from o0202001.128b document entry page (cfr. Note 5). 35The website’s layout utilizes a combination of header images, navigation bars, and tables to organize the various sections of the project. This organization ensures that users can easily access different sections such as “Studies”, “Sources”, “Dates”, “Indices”, “Topics”, “Reference”, and “Texts”. The interface is designed to be cohesive, although it relies heavily on older web design practices like table-based layouts using , , and elements (fig. 7). Updating the design by adopting modern CSS techniques, such as Flexbox or Grid layouts, would allow for more flexible and responsive designs, while semantic HTML5 elements like , , , and would improve accessibility and search engine optimization. 36The browsing and search experience on the website could benefit from some improvements. The interface lacks the intuitiveness needed for users to navigate effectively without prior guidance. For instance, the top horizontal bar does not include clear call-to-actions (CTAs), which makes navigation challenging without referring to the “Guide” section. Additionally, the absence of a search bar further complicates the browsing experience, as users may struggle to locate specific content without a thorough understanding of the site’s structure. Another issue is the website’s lack of optimization for various devices, suggesting that responsive design techniques were not prioritized at the time, even though these practices had become widely adopted by the early 2010s in response to the growing need for websites to be compatible with a wider range of screen sizes, including smartphones and tablets. This limitation could be addressed by incorporating responsive design techniques, such as CSS media queries, to ensure the site adapts smoothly to different screen sizes. 37Moreover, the project does not integrate with social media or external virtual channels, limiting opportunities for content sharing and discussion. Adding social sharing buttons and integrating APIs from platforms like X would foster user engagement and align the project with contemporary trends in Digital Humanities, where social media is often used for research dissemination and community interaction.14 The absence of such features may be due to the project’s age. Social media integration became more widespread in the mid-2010s, with many platforms offering APIs for sharing and interaction. However, for a project that predates this trend or was last updated before these features became standard, such integrations might not have been considered, particularly if the focus was on the academic and archival aspects rather than on broader community engagement. Fig. 8: Sample HTML code from the website homepage. 38The pages of the website are organized systematically, reflecting a structured archive that documents different facets of the dome over time. The top navigation bar provides language options between Italian and English, with clickable URLs that lead to major sections of the archive. However, the use of older HTML attributes, such as the onMouseOver and onMouseOut event handlers for hover effects (fig. 8), makes the code less maintainable. These could be improved by utilizing modern CSS techniques like the :hover pseudo-class, which allows for cleaner, more maintainable code. 39The side navigation panel offers links to project descriptions, supporter information, staff and collaborations, help, the image archive, copyright details, and contact information. The footer section is functional, providing links to navigate back to the top of the page, return to the previous page, access help, contact the project team, and return to the home page. However, the placement of the “Home” link at the bottom of the page can be somewhat inconvenient, especially when the content is lengthy, requiring users to scroll all the way down to access it. For example, a “back to top” button could allow users to navigate easily without scrolling. Additionally, these links still rely on outdated in-line scripting techniques for hover effects, which could be more efficiently handled using CSS to enhance performance, readability, and overall user experience. 40Furthermore, the web pages include interactive navigation features that allow users to explore the indexed entries more easily. Arrow icons function as hyperlinks and are embedded within the documents’ entry pages. By clicking these icons, users can seamlessly move between related entries, enhancing the ability to view and understand the connections and details of each record. Metadata, Interlinkage, Access to Basic Data 41The project’s metadata and interlinkage strategies for describing and connecting the various components of the digital edition demonstrate both strengths and limitations. Metadata plays a crucial role in cataloguing and organizing digital content, facilitating discoverability, and enabling connections between related objects within the digital archive. In this project, metadata about each document – such as the date, summary, source, text, notes, links, and bibliography – is embedded directly within the web pages containing record transcriptions. These pages adhere to standard HTML declarations but rely heavily on nested tables for structuring content. While this method helps preserve the accuracy of the transcriptions, it creates barriers to user interaction with the graphical interface, and it deviates from contemporary semantic HTML practices. For instance, the section of each page includes titles that reference specific documents – e.g., “II 1 86: 49: o0201086.049b” – which aids in organizing content within the edition but provides limited opportunities for integration and interoperability with external digital systems. 42A significant limitation, as noted earlier, is the project’s lack of adherence to modern metadata standards and advanced technologies like Linked Open Data (LOD) and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF). This aspect underscores the need for greater methodological transparency and improved data accessibility. Additionally, the project does not offer access to fundamental data formats such as XML or JSON, which would enable users to download, manipulate, or repurpose the data for further research or digital scholarship. Combined with the reliance on outdated HTML and table-based layouts, these shortcomings hinder technical accessibility, interoperability, and scholarly reuse. As suggested above, adopting current web standards could significantly enhance the project’s scholarly impact. 43In conclusion, adopting machine-readable metadata standards like Schema.org or Dublin Core would enhance the edition’s discoverability, facilitating seamless integration with other digital collections and fostering broader collaboration within the Digital Humanities community. The absence of formal documentation, retrievable XML encoding or basic data, and compliance with best practices for text encoding, metadata, and image delivery limits its interoperability, reuse, and long-term sustainability. While the edition offers valuable indices and critical transcriptions that support scholarly research, these strengths come at the cost of broader data compatibility. Aligning with established standards is essential to maximizing both the present and future scholarly impact of the edition. Rights and Licences 44Legal considerations, including rights and licenses for the project’s content, are outlined in the “Copyright” section of the website. The materials presented by the Gli Anni della Cupola SDE are owned by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, which grants public access with all rights reserved. As stated on the website: “Users may freely consult the digital archive and reproduce up to 5% of the total text published electronically, solely for the purpose of documenting scholarly publications. Written permission from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore is required for any other type of use (commercial, reproduction of images, collections exceeding 5%, etc.).”15 The authorship rights of the edition are attributed to Margaret Haines, and users must seek permission to reuse these materials. 45Although the project provides public access to its content, it is not fully open access in the sense of unrestricted reuse. While materials are freely available for research and educational purposes, they are subject to licensing restrictions, and intellectual property rights are retained by the editors and publishers of the SDE. The project is accessible via the web, but any reuse of the content beyond personal consultation requires permission, in line with the established intellectual property statements. Additional Features Fig. 9: The footer notes of an essay in “STUDIES”. Fig. 10: Table inserted in the HTML version of the essay. Fig. 11: Image inserted in the HTML version of the essay. 46An interesting additional feature of the SDE is the “Studies” section. Configured as an open-access digital library, this section provides users with original research essays linked to archival acts, enhancing systematic analysis and suggesting specific case studies. This approach replaces traditional archival citations in notes with more advanced hypertext links between essays and archival acts. Accessible via the “STUDIES” label on the website, users can seamlessly navigate between articles and related documents using a backlink system. As mentioned before, essays are available in both HTML and PDF formats and users can access the page of each cited record by simply clicking on the relevant unique alphanumeric code highlighted in blue in the footer notes (fig. 9). This method streamlines the consultation process, making it more efficient and user-friendly. Various auxiliary tools, such as illustrations, graphs, and tables (fig. 10 and 11), are readily accessible in the HTML version of the essays through the index and links in the main text. 47However, it should be noted that most essays available are written in Italian, with no English translations. This language limitation could restrict access for non-Italian speaking scholars and general users, thus potentially limiting the project’s broader impact. Long Term Use 48Ensuring the longevity of digital projects like Gli anni della Cupola requires a proactive approach to managing the lifecycle of both software and hardware components, as digital environments evolve rapidly. Unlike traditional libraries and archives, where physical texts such as printed books and manuscripts can endure for decades or even centuries without requiring significant technological upgrades – though they still need careful conservation and environmental control to prevent deterioration –, digital resources face the constant challenge of obsolescence. While the preservation of physical items involves addressing issues like mold, pests, acid deterioration, and binding decay, these are generally slower and more predictable processes compared to the rapid technological changes that impact digital environments. 49In digital preservation, both platforms and the underlying hardware must be regularly updated or replaced to remain functional, creating an ongoing cycle of maintenance driven by the fast pace of technological advancement. This continuous need for renewal results in significant costs for replacing and upgrading software, hardware, and digital storage media. Therefore, digital projects cannot rely on a one-time setup; they require a dynamic strategy for maintenance and management over time. Any sustainable plan for Gli anni della Cupola must account for these factors, including provisions for ongoing technical updates, replacements, and migration to newer technologies to mitigate the risks of digital decay and obsolescence, such as outdated software, data formats, and hardware (Alberti 2001).16 Fig. 12: Service levels for long term availability of SDEs according to Oltmanns et al. (2019). 50For Gli Anni della Cupola, long-term use hinges on the collaboration between several key institutions, such as the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), the Institute of Computational Linguistics at the CNR in Pisa, the archive of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and funding supports from Regione Toscana. These institutions provide a foundation for the project’s curation and sustainment. Additionally, the sustainability of the project would benefit from a clear plan for ongoing maintenance and access. The service levels proposed by Oltmanns et al. (2019 – fig. 12) offer a useful framework for considering the options available to maintain and provide continuous access to such digital resources. Each level presents a different approach to sustaining SDEs over the long term, ranging from Continuous Maintenance, which involves active development to adapt to changes in user environments, to more foundational levels like Application Conservation and Bitstream Preservation, which ensure more basic forms of preservation with varying levels of functionality and accessibility. 51The experience of the Opus Postumum, a critical digital edition of Kant’s work developed by the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW), exemplifies one approach to the long-term use of SDEs, as noted by Oltmanns et al. (2019). This edition uses a server-based system combining an XML database (eXist-db) and a digital image library provided by Digilib, offering robust access controls and optimization for scholarly work. The Opus Postumum has been designed to not only publish project results but also to support continuous editing and scholarly engagement. This approach aligns with the Continuous Maintenance service level, requiring substantial institutional support for ongoing updates and infrastructure management. Such a model would be advantageous for Gli anni della Cupola to ensure that it remains a living digital resource, though it necessitates a commitment to continual investment in infrastructure and technical support. 52Conversely, the Edition Visualization Technology (EVT) tool, developed as part of the Digital Vercelli Book project (Rosselli del Turco 2018), adopts a client-only approach that relies on established web standards like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. This setup simplifies the (re)deployment of an SDE across different web servers without requiring additional server-side software, aligning more with the Application Conservation service level (Oltmanns et al. 2019). For projects like Gli anni della Cupola, this model could offer a more pragmatic solution for preserving and presenting the digital edition, ensuring long-term access with less intensive maintenance. However, it may lack some of the advanced functionalities and data management capabilities found in more server-based setups like Opus Postumum. 53Given the diversity of these approaches and the potential benefits of each one, it is essential for Gli anni della Cupola to develop a strategic plan that aligns with its goals for long-term usability. This plan should address the need for continuous access to its digital content, whether through more active maintenance or more stable but less flexible preservation methods. Institutional support from its partner organizations will be crucial to achieving sustainable outcomes. Realization of Aims 54Gli Anni della Cupola 1417–1436 successfully qualifies as a documentary SDE, fulfilling its primary objectives of digitizing texts and providing historical insights into the construction of Brunelleschi’s dome. By exceeding the limitations of print technology and offering unique digital functionalities, the project aligns with Patrick Sahle’s criteria for SDEs (Sahle 2016). It provides a critical representation of historic documents, ensuring that the digitized texts are meticulously documented and thus authoritative for academic research. The edition utilizes structured digital tools and technologies to present both photographic facsimiles and transcriptions of the documents, fully embracing the digital paradigm. 55The project further distinguishes itself through the use of sophisticated analytical frameworks, such as thorough indexing and detailed commentary, offering a multi-layered approach to text exploration. Users can move seamlessly from viewing a photographic facsimile of a manuscript, to examining its transcription, to engaging with in-depth commentary. This integrated approach overcomes the static nature of print and enables dynamic user interaction with the material. As a result, the project supports advanced philological research, preserves invaluable historical documents, and opens new avenues for scholarly inquiry, making it a comprehensive and valuable digital resource. Usability, Usefulness, Quality 56The SDE Gli Anni della Cupola stands out for its focus on critical scholarship and meticulous documentation, offering users a rich repository of historical documents, critical transcriptions, and facsimiles that support in-depth research and study. Since its inception, the project has steadily contributed to the preservation and accessibility of crucial archival materials. The online interface, which has served the project well over the years, presents the information in a functional, if somewhat traditional, format. Today, there is a clear recognition of the need for adjustments to ensure its continued relevance and usability. As the field of digital textual scholarship evolves, updating the SDE’s navigation and search tools, as well as making the data more flexible for future academic applications, would significantly enhance its usability. While the project has accomplished much, it remains an ongoing endeavor, and further development, along with necessary funding, will ensure it continues to evolve as a valuable resource for researchers and scholars in the future. Conclusions and Suggestions for Improvement 57The following summary outlines the key issues discussed throughout this review. To further enhance the SDE’s scholarly value and improve the user experience, several enhancements are recommended. However, it is important to note that implementing these suggestions would require considerable funding and resources, as they would involve substantial updates to both the technical infrastructure and user interface. These improvements aim to not only refine the functionality of the project but also to ensure its long-term sustainability and accessibility to a wider academic audience. Revise User Experience (UX) 58 Modernize interface design: Update the interface to improve usability and visual appeal by integrating modern web design principles, such as avoiding nested tables in favor of CSS implementations like Flexbox and Grid Layouts. This would enhance the semantic structure and accessibility of the site. Simplify navigation structure: Streamline the navigation with a unified top navigation bar with clear, descriptive labels and an integrated search box. This would help users find content more easily without extensive searching. Clickable icons and buttons: Replace text links with more engaging buttons and clickable icons to improve the interaction design – e.g., transforming “view image” in the document modules into a button-like item. Responsive design: Ensure the website is fully responsive, optimizing it for a range of devices including tablets and smartphones. Enhance Interoperability and Access to Data 59 Implement metadata standards: Facilitate broader data sharing and reuse within the Digital Humanities community. Aligning the data with the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) Guidelines would involve restructuring the project’s data to coordinate with a widely accepted framework for textual encoding and representation. This integration would introduce a formal schema, enhancing the project’s documentation and transparency, and thereby facilitating easier reuse and adaptation by other researchers and projects. Concurrently, integrating technologies like linked open data (LOD) and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) would promote seamless data integration, sharing, and reuse across platforms (Snydman et al. 2015). These enhancements would increase the project’s compatibility with other digital archives and research tools, broadening its utility and impact within the Digital Humanities community. Provide access to basic data formats: Allow users to download datasets in standard formats like XML or JSON for independent analysis and research. This would enable scholars to manipulate and repurpose data for further digital scholarship. Enable multiple outputs: Consider separating the data model (the source) and the publication (the output) into distinct objects, allowing users to toggle between different views – such as reading, critical, and diplomatic editions. This flexibility, inspired by projects like the Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts Digital Edition, would enrich user engagement by providing options to modify outputs dynamically (Pierazzo 2016). Improve Search Capabilities 60 Integrated search engine: Develop a robust search engine with advanced features such as keywords and faceted search to refine results. This will enhance the discoverability of content by ensuring all documents, images, and texts are thoroughly indexed. Semantic tagging and structured data representation: Incorporate semantic tagging for key concepts like time, people, places, and events to enhance search functionality. Leveraging TEI’s rich set of tagging options would enable more detailed encoding of historical and textual features, supporting advanced search and analysis functionalities. Employ structured data representation methods, such as XML/TEI and RDF (Resource Description Framework), to provide richer semantic data and facilitate better interlinkage between objects. Address Technical Limitations 61 Fix broken image URLs: Regularly verify and update Digilib images URLs to ensure they are functional. Ensure that all images are high-resolution and accessible without technical issues, enhancing the visual integrity and usability of the site. Expand the “Studies” section: Encourage new scholarly contributions to keep the section dynamic and current. Integrate with External Platforms and Enhance Collaboration 62 Social media integration: Establish profiles on major social media platforms to promote the project and to regularly share updates, findings, and project features, increasing visibility and engagement. Dynamic hyperlinking and citation graphs: One notable opportunity for enhancing the Studies Library in Gli Anni della Cupola could be the integration of principles and technologies from the OpenCitations initiative. OpenCitations17 is known for promoting an open, machine-readable citation database that enhances scholarly connectivity. Since the SDE’s journal already provides an open-access platform for original research, adopting an OpenCitations-like approach could improve reference management in several ways. Implementing an RDF schema for references would create a linked network, connecting internal citations to external sources and enriching research context. Embedding DOIs for cited works and using OpenCitations tools to convert citations into linked data formats would allow seamless navigation between the journal’s essays and external academic resources. This integration would enhance user experience by allowing direct access to cited works and related research. Moreover, linked data would improve navigation by allowing users to click on references within the SDE to view related articles and documents, fostering an interconnected scholarly environment. It would also enhance search functionality, helping users locate specific references and explore broader research themes, enriching the backlink system and index in the journal’s HTML and PDF versions. Incorporating OpenCitations principles would thus improve citation management, broaden the research context, and foster a more interconnected scholarly landscape within the Studies Library. Ensure the Long-term Sustainability and Usability 63It is essential to develop a comprehensive strategic plan that aligns with the SDE’s objectives for enduring accessibility and scholarly impact. This plan should integrate active maintenance – such as regular updates, software upgrades, and technological adaptations – with stable preservation methods to safeguard against digital obsolescence. Drawing on models like those employed by the Opus Postumum and the Edition Visualization Technology (EVT) tool can offer valuable insights for enhancing the project’s longevity and usability. The success of this strategy relies heavily on sustained support from key partners, who provide the technical expertise and resources necessary to manage ongoing updates, infrastructure, and curation efforts. By incorporating these elements into a cohesive sustainability framework, the project can remain a dynamic, accessible, and valuable resource for scholars and the public, preserving its significance for future generations. 64Gli Anni della Cupola is a documentary digital edition that integrates digital transcriptions, sophisticated indexing strategies, and scholarly commentary to support thorough research and engagement with historical records. By embracing a custom approach to data modelling, this project has tailored its resources to address the unique challenges of historical document preservation, albeit at the cost of broader interoperability and adherence to established standards. The project’s dedication to comprehensive indexing and critical commentary demonstrates a commitment to scholarly rigor, though the reliance on outdated technologies presents hurdles to wider accessibility. Despite these challenges, the inclusion of features like the “Studies” section and the project’s commitment to open access highlight its innovative spirit. These elements not only enhance the usability and depth of the archive of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore but also reflect a broader potential for digital projects to contribute meaningfully to research and education. As the field of Digital Humanities advances, Gli Anni della Cupola stands as an inspiring example of how projects can effectively preserve and democratize knowledge, offering a compelling model for future initiatives to build upon its achievements and tackle its challenges. Notes [1] Filippo Brunelleschi was a pioneering figure in the development of Renaissance architecture and engineering. His most celebrated accomplishment, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, exemplified his forward-thinking approach, incorporating novel construction methods such as self-supporting frameworks and innovative bricklaying techniques. His work not only reshaped the limits of architectural design but also symbolized the era’s intellectual and cultural ideals, influencing generations of architects and designers who followed in his footsteps (Vasari 2001). [2] The institution also manages the Museum of the Opera del Duomo, which houses many of the original works from the cathedral and the other monuments of the complex. [3] Margaret Haines – PhD graduate from the Courtauld Institute and an esteemed American art historian – is renowned for her research on the publication and interpretation of documentary sources relating to the Florentine Renaissance. Her work focuses on corporate patronage and the management of the worksite of the Florentine Cathedral (Haines 1989). [4] As clearly stated on the project’s homepage: “Digital archive of the sources of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore”. [5] https://web.archive.org/web/20250311173746/http://duomo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/INFO_ENG/Project_description.HTM. [6] It can be inferred that “DBT”, as defined by Haines (2002), refers to a custom software solution designed to serve as a data storage for managing digitized records and transcriptions of the SDE. Although the available sources do not provide detailed technical specifications, they mention the use of XML, indicating a structured data format at its foundation. However, without access to the underlying source code or further documentation, the database’s exact design, data model, functionality, and implementation remain unclear. [7] The exact quantity of materials and contents provided by the SDE is not clearly specified. Regarding digital photographic representations of records, the “Project Description” page mentions a “[…] complete set of 10,500 images covering all the acts published in the textual archive.” Additionally, the “Guide to Consultation” page states that “[…] over nearly 1,800,000 files with responses to queries regarding the corpus of documents can be consulted with an ordinary internet browser.” However, the total number of acts available in the SDE remains uncertain. [8] https://web.archive.org/web/20250311172537/http://duomo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/INFO_ENG/Image_archive.HTM. [9] This financial act o0201086.049b details a decision made by the operai (officials) regarding the allocation of fifty gold florins to Schiacte Uberti de Ridolfis for the purchase of glass needed for two windows to be crafted by Brother Bernardinus Stefani of the Dominican Order of Santa Maria Novella. The work was to be carried out in a church in Venice, reflecting the intricate network of artistic commissions of the time. [10] In this context, Nobiles viri can be expanded to nobiles viri vel magnates, which translates roughly to “noble men or magnates” or “noblemen”. The phrase is a formal designation that refers to a group of individuals who hold noble status or rank, often used in medieval and Renaissance documents to address or refer to men of high social standing, typically followed by their full titles and family associations (Rehberg 2006). [11] As shown in fig. 2, the transcription of the text for the record o0202001.128b was carried out by Margaret Haines (“mh”), while the analysis was conducted by Lucia Sandri (“ls”). [12] See an example of a proxy error occurring while accessing a Digilib image. [13] The editors mention the DBT database on the “Project description” page of the SDE. For more information on the early version of the SDE, see Haines (2002). [14] While valuable, social sharing features are a lower priority due to the fragmented nature of social media ecosystems and increasingly private sharing habits (e.g., DMs, group chats). Alternative dissemination strategies – such as targeted newsletters, academic networks (e.g., Knowledge Commons), or scholarly platforms like Zenodo or Open Science Framework (OSF) – may offer more consistent and effective outreach. [15] https://web.archive.org/web/20250202150651/http://duomo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/INFO_ENG/Copyright.HT. [16] The Socio-Technical Sustainability Roadmap offers a structured approach to long-term digital project planning, emphasizing the need to consider both technical infrastructure and social-organizational support for sustainability. [17] OpenCitations, established in 2010, aims to publish open bibliographic citation information in RDF. It produces the OpenCitations corpus database, facilitating greater access to and dissemination of scholarly citation. See more information on the OC webpage. References Alberti, Maria Alberta, Giliola Barbero and Cesare Pasini. 2001. From parchment to the network: The digitization of manuscript catalogues. Milan: Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Informazione Università degli Studi di Milano. Ackerman, James Sloss. 1966. The Architecture of Michelangelo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Burnard, Lou and Syd Bauman, eds. 2013. TEI P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Oxford/Providence/Charlottesville/Nancy: Text Encoding Initiative Consortium. Giacomelli, Gabriele, and Enzo Settesoldi. 1993. Gli organi di S. Maria del Fiore di Firenze: Sette secoli di storia dal Trecento al Novecento. Historiae Musicae Cultores 67. Firenze: Olschki. Guasti, Cesare. 1857. La Cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore. Firenze: Forni. Guasti, Cesare. 1887. Santa Maria del Fiore: La Costruzione della Chiesa e del Campanile Secondo i Documenti Tratti dall’Archivio dell’Opera Secolare e da Quello di Stato. Firenze: Ricci. Haines, Margaret. 1989. “Brunelleschi and Bureaucracy: The Tradition of Public Patronage at the Florentine Cathedral.” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 3: 89–125. https://doi.org/10.2307/4603662. Haines, Margaret. 2002. “Gli anni della Cupola. Archivio digitale delle fonti dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore.” Reti Medievali Rivista 3 (2). Florence: Firenze University Press. Haines, Margaret. 2011. “Myth and Management in the Construction of Brunelleschi’s Cupola.” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 14/15: 47–101. The University of Chicago Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41781523. Haines, Margaret, ed. 2015. Gli anni della cupola 1417–1436 [Archivio digitale delle fonti dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore]. Accessed March 11, 2025. Opera del Duomo Florence archive servers: http://archivio.operaduomo.fi.it/cupola/home.HTML. MPIWG servers: http://duomo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/. King, Ross. 2000. Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture. USA: Penguin Books. Oltmanns, Elias, Tim Hasler, Wolfgang Peters-Kottig, and Heinz-Günter Kuper. 2019. “Different preservation levels: The case of scholarly digital editions.” Data Science Journal 18 (51), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-051. Pierazzo, Elena. 2011. “A rationale of digital documentary editions.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 26 (4): 463–477. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqr033. Rehberg, Andreas. 2006. “‘Nobiles’, ‘milites’ e ‘cavallerocti’ nel tardo Duecento e nel trecento.” In La nobiltà romana nel Medioevo, edited by Sandro Carocci, 1–52. Rome: École Française de Rome. Robinson, Peter. 2013. “The Concept of the Work in the Digital Age.” Ecdotica 10, edited by Bárbara Bordalejo, 13–41. Bologna: Università di Bologna. https://web.archive.org/web/20250426135051/https://site.unibo.it/ecdotica/it/numeri-della-rivista/ecdotica-10-2013/ecdotica-10-2013.pdf/@@download/file/Ecdotica%2010%20(2013).pdf. Rosselli del Turco, Roberto. 2018. The Digital Vercelli Book. Accessed March 11, 2025. http://vbd.humnet.unipi.it/beta/index.html#104v. Saalman, Howard. 1980. Filippo Brunelleschi: The Cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore. London: A. Zwemmer. Sahle, Patrick. 2016. “What is a scholarly digital edition?” In Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, edited by Matthew James Driscoll and Elena Pierazzo, 19–40. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers. Schraut, Tobias. 2008. “Special Interest Group ‘digilib’ – an overview.” Presentation at eSciDoc Days, Berlin. Accessed May 16, 2025. https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_1759464_1/component/file_1759463/content?download=true. Schreibman, Susan, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, eds. 2004. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Snydman, Stuart, Robert Sanderson, and Tom Cramer. 2015. “The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF): A Community & Technology Approach for Web-Based Images.” Innovative Software, Projects, and Services 12. https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2168-3204.2015.12.1.art00005. Vasari, Giorgio. 2001. Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri. Edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino, Firenze, 1550. Turin: Einaudi. Young, John. 2016. “The Scholarly Edition and the Digital Critical Archive: Interaction, Collaboration, Community, and Adaptive Revision.” Committee on Scholarly Editions (blog), July 26, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20250411115306/https://scholarlyeditions.mla.hcommons.org/the-scholarly-edition-and-the-digital-critical-archive-interaction-collaboration-community-and-adaptive-revision/. Figures Fig. 1: Gli Anni della Cupola website homepage. Italian version. Fig. 2: The document entry page of the record with ID o0202001.128b. Fig. 3: The transcription of the record o0201086.049b, with editorial annotations in the “NOTES”. Fig. 4: The “view image” button to access the facsimile of the record o0201086.049b. Fig. 5: Example of the facsimile displayed with the image viewing tool. Fig. 6: The left navbar displays the 11 categories of subjects in the guided research. Fig. 7: Sample HTML code from o0202001.128b document entry page (cfr. Note 5). Fig. 8: Sample HTML code from the website homepage. Fig. 9: The footer notes of an essay in “STUDIES”. Fig. 10: Table inserted in the HTML version of the essay. Fig. 11: Image inserted in the HTML version of the essay. Fig. 12: Service levels for long term availability of SDEs according to Oltmanns et al. (2019).
Resource reviewed Title Anne Frank House VR & The Secret Annex (3D) Editors Anne Frank Stichting URI https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/web-and-digital/ Publication Date 2018 Date of last access 01.03.2023 Reviewer Name Feldbrügge, Marcus Affiliation Bergische Universität Wuppertal Place Wuppertal, Germany Email feldbruegge@uni-wuppertal.de Documentation … Factsheet Read More »
Resource reviewed Title Anne Frank House VR & The Secret Annex (3D) Editors Anne Frank Stichting URI https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/web-and-digital/ Publication Date 2018 Date of last access 01.03.2023 Reviewer Name Feldbrügge, Marcus Affiliation Bergische Universität Wuppertal Place Wuppertal, Germany Email feldbruegge@uni-wuppertal.de Documentation Bibliographic description Is it easily possible to describe the project bibliographically along the schema “responsible editors, publishing/hosting institution, year(s) of publishing”? (cf. Catalogue 1.2) Contributors Are the contributors (editors, institutions, associates) of the project fully documented? (cf. Catalogue 1.4) Contacts Does the project list contact persons? (cf. Catalogue 1.5) Selection Is the selection of materials of the project explicitly documented? (cf. Catalogue 2.1) Reasonability of the selection Is the selection by and large reasonable? (cf. Catalogue 2.1) Archiving of data (?) Choose yes if you have reason to believe that the archiving and long term sustainability of the data is cared for (e.g. because the data is part of a platform that cares for these aspects), even if the documentation makes no explicit statement about it. Does the documentation include information about the long term sustainability of the basic data (archiving of the data)? (cf. Catalogue 4.16) Aims Are the aims and purposes of the project explicitly documented? (cf. Catalogue 3.1) Methods Are the methods employed in the project explicitly documented? (cf. Catalogue 3.1) Data model Does the project document which data model (e.g. TEI) has been used and for what reason? (cf. Catalogue 3.7) Help Does the project offer help texts concerning the use of the project? (cf. Catalogue 4.15) Citation Does the project supply citation guidelines (i.e. how to cite the project or a part of it)? (cf. Catalogue 4.8) Completion Does the editon regard itself as a completed project (i.e. not promise further modifications and additions)? (cf. Catalogue 4.16) Institutional curation (?) Select yes, if there is either an explicit claim that continuous maintenance for the project is provided by some institution or you have strong reason to believe that this is the case, even if it is not explicitly claimed, otherwise select no. Does the project provide information about institutional support for the curation and sustainability of the project? (cf. Catalogue 4.16) Contents Previous edition Has the material been previously edited (in print or digitally)? (cf. Catalogue 2.2) Materials used Does the edition make use of these previous editions? (cf. Catalogue 2.2) Introduction Does the project offer an introduction to the subject-matter (the author(s), the work, its history, the theme, etc.) of the project? (cf. Catalogue 4.15) Bibliography Does the project offer a bibliography? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Commentary Does the project offer a scholarly commentary (e.g. notes on unclear passages, interpretation, etc.)? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Contexts Does the project include or link to external resources with contextual material? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Images Does the project offer images of digitised sources? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Image quality Does the project offer images of an acceptable quality? (cf. Catalogue 4.6) Transcriptions Is the text fully transcribed? (cf. Catalogue 2.3) Text quality Does the project offer texts of an acceptable quality (typos, errors, etc.)? (cf. Catalogue 4.6) Indices Does the project feature compilations indices, registers or visualisations that offer alternative ways to access the material? (cf. Catalogue 4.5) Types of documents (?) Single manuscript: a single physical document or a series of documents belonging together, like a multi volume manuscript or a series of notebooks. Single work: a single work, e.g. Plato’s Laches, which might be transmitted in multiple manuscripts. Collection of texts: several abstract texts across the documents of their transmission, e.g Aristotle’s Physics and Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Collected works: a collection of several works of one or several authors, e.g. the works of Plato. Papers: a collection of personal or family documents or personal papers. Archival holding: the collection of a repository. Charters: texts documenting a legal fact by using a special form supporting its validity, e.g. the Magna Carta. Letters: letters of one or several authors. Diary: one or several diaries of one or several authors. Which kinds of documents are at the basis of the project? (cf. Catalogue 1.3 and 2.1) Diary, Other: Reconstruction of the annex Document era (?) Classics: before 500 CE. Medieval: 501 CE until 1500 CE. Early modern: 1501 CE until 1800 CE. Modern: 1801 CE until today. What era(s) do the documents belong to? (cf. Catalogue 1.3 and 2.1) Modern Subject Which perspective(s) do the editors take towards the edited material? How can the edition be classified in general terms? (cf. Catalogue 1.3) History, Philology / Literary Studies Spin-Offs (?) App: any application (for personal computer or mobile devices) apart from browsers with which the project can be accessed. Mobile: a browser-version adapted for mobile devices. PDF: the project or parts of as PDF files. Does the project offer any spin-offs? (cf. Catalogue 4.11) App, Mobile, Other: Videos Access modes Browse by (?) Structure: Select this if the project allows browsing by elements used to structure a text, e.g. chapters, sections, paragraphs, etc. Documents: Select this if the project offers to browse by individual source objects, e.g. by the individual letters in a letter-edition, the individual charters in a charter-edition, etc. Images: Select this if the project allows browsing by facsimile (e.g. through a gallery). By which categories does the project offer to browse the contents? (cf. Catalogue 4.3) Other: non Simple search Does the project offer a simple search? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Advanced search (?) Any search that offers more complex search than just a word or a phrase, e.g. boolean operators, wildcards, restricted search, etc. Does the project offer an advanced search? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Wildcard search (?) Any search that offers to substitute a defined set of possible characters by special characters, e.g. ‘king*’ searching for ‘king’, ‘kings’, ‘kingdom’, etc. Does the search support the use of wildcards? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Index (?) Select yes if it is possible to access an index of a search field, e.g. if the search field ‘author’ is present, a list of all authors the project contains is accessible. Does the search offer an index of the searched field? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Suggest functionalities (?) Any search that offers possible search as soon as the first characters are typed into the search field. Does the search offer autocompletion or suggest functionalities? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Help texts (?) Texts that explain how to use the search function, e.g. explanation of wildcard characters, operators, etc. Does the project offer help texts for the search? (cf. Catalogue 4.4) Aims and methods Audience Who is the intended audience of the project? (cf. Catalogue 3.3) Interested public Typology (?) Facsimile edition: Focuses on the visual layer of texts with additional information for access and understanding; no transcription. Archive edition: Focuses on the width of a work, the documents of its transmission, its context; aims at completeness. Documentary edition: Related to the school of “documentary editing”, focuses on the documents rather than on abstract texts; tries to give truthful representations of the documents with (often: diplomatic) transcription and additional information. Diplomatic edition: Focuses on the text (not the visual layer) of documents, tries to give a transcription as accurate as possible. Genetic edition: Focuses on the genesis of texts, usually on the level of microgenesis (within a document) sometimes on the level of macrogenesis (across documents). Work critical edition: Focuses on the (potentially: complete) work of an author, aims at completeness on the level of the abstract work (and what needs to be presented to accomplish this). Text critical edition: Focuses on the construction of a “best text” or definitive reading by means of textual criticism. Enriched edition: ’Enriched Edition’ describes digital representations of texts that put a particular emphasis on extracting information from the text, e.g. by elaborate indices, extensive comments and annotations on the content, linking of related information, or formal representation of content. Database edition: Transforms text and documents into structured data to capture the semantic information. Digital library: Provides a collection of scholarly material without the approach of critical engagement with single documents, texts, or works; or simple digital facsimiles; not a scholarly digital edition in the sense of the review criteria. Collection of texts: Textual representations without critical commentary, the application of textual criticism or paratexts that describe, explain or contextualize the texts; not a scholarly digital edition in the sense of the review criteria. Which type fits best for the reviewed project? (cf. Catalogue 3.3 and 5.1) Other: VR-Simulation Critical editing (?) Transmission examined: Attempt to establish the transmission of the text, the results of which are traditionally reflected in a Stemma Codicum. Palaeographic annotations: Accounts of the palaeographic dimension of a text. Normalization: The orthography has been normalised according to a chosen standard (e.g. ’seyn’ to ’sein’). Variants: Accounts of textual variants, i.e. textual differences between documents transmitting the same text. Emendation: Corrections or revisions have been applied to the text. Commentary notes: Comments regarding any of the phenomena mentioned before or other textual phenomena (not regarding the content). In how far is the text critically edited? (cf. Catalogue 3.6) Other: No text is edited, but the environment of the text production XML Is the data encoded in XML? (cf. Catalogue 3.7) Standardized data model Is the project employing a standardized data model (e.g. TEI)? (cf. Catalogue 3.7) Types of text (?) Facsimiles: Any copy of historical documents. Diplomatic transcription: Transcription of the document taking account of features like spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, deletions, insertions, alterations, etc. Edited text: A reading text as constituted by the editor(s), based on procedures like recensio, examinatio, emendatio, correction, normalization, modernization etc. Translations: Any translations into languages different from that of the original text. Commentaries: Scholarly commentary on the content of the documents. Semantic data: Transformation of the text (e.g. an account book) into a database or representation of its content as RDF or the like. Which kinds or forms of text are presented? (cf. Catalogue 3.5.) Facsimiles, Commentaries Technical accessability Persistent identification (?) DOI: Digital Object Identifier according to the definition of The International DOI Foundation. The DOIs should be resolvable through http://doi.org/. ARK: Archival Resource Key according to the definition of the California Digital Library. An ARK URL contains the label: ‘ark’ after the URL’s hostname. URN: Uniform Resource Name using the urn: scheme. URNs always start with the label ’urn:’. PURL.ORG: Persistent Uniform Resource Locator using the PURL concept and administered by the Online Computer Library Centre. Persistent URLs: Choose this if the project promises permanent URLs or uses a local resolving system between URLs and underlying technical addresses but does not use any of the external services mentioned in the options. None: Choose this if no persistent identifiers and adressing system are used at all. Are there persistent identifiers and an addressing system for the edition and/or parts/objects of it and which mechanism is used to that end? (cf. Catalogue 4.8) None Interfaces Are there technical interfaces like OAI-PMH, REST etc., which allow the reuse of the data of the project in other contexts? (cf. Catalogue 4.9) None Open Access (?) Are the contents of the presentation freely accessible without subscription fee? Is the edition Open Access? Accessability of the basic data (?) The data from which the HTML or other spin-offs have been produced, e.g. the XML of a specific part of the project. If the basic data is only accessible as a download package containing the entire data, select ’no’ here. Is the basic data (e.g. the XML) of the project accessible for each part of the edition (e.g. for a page)? (cf. Catalogue 4.12) Download (?) Can the basic data be downloaded as a whole via HTTP- or FTP-Link, i.e. not only individual parts like the XML of a specific part of the project. Can the entire raw data of the project be downloaded (as a whole)? (cf. Catalogue 4.9) Reuse Can you use the data with other tools useful for this kind of content? (cf. Catalogue 4.9) Declaration of rights Are the rights to (re)use the content declared? (cf. Catalogue 4.13) License (?) CC0: Creative Commons license CC0 applied. CC-BY: Creative Commons license CC-BY applied. CC-BY-ND: Creative Commons license CC-BY-ND applied. CC-BY-NC: Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC applied. CC-BY-SA: Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA applied. CC-BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND applied. CC-BY-NC-SA: Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-SA applied. PDM: Work is in the Public Domain. Under what license are the contents released? (cf. Catalogue 4.13) No license Personnel Editors Anne Frank Stichting Programmers Ronde, Martin de Tasma, Hans Advisors Besmann, Charlotte Brink, Tom Ellen van der Kraan
Anne Frank House VR & The Secret Annex (3D)
Anne Frank House VR & The Secret Annex (3D), Anne Frank Stichting (ed.), 2018. https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/web-and-digital/ (Last Accessed: 01.03.2023). Reviewed by Marcus Feldbrügge (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), feldbruegge@uni-wuppertal.de. || Abstract: After his return from deportation, Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, decreed … Anne Frank House VR & The Secret Annex (3D) Read More »
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><paste> Anne Frank House VR & The Secret Annex (3D), Anne Frank Stichting (ed.), 2018. https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/web-and-digital/ (Last Accessed: 01.03.2023). Reviewed by Marcus Feldbrügge (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), feldbruegge@uni-wuppertal.de. || Abstract: After his return from deportation, Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, decreed that the annex in which the family hid during WWII should no longer be furnished. For this reason, Anne Frank’s world-famous writing place is vacant today. With the project The Secret Annex (3D), which was launched in 2010, and the VR application The Anne Frank House VR, which has existed since 2018, the Anne Frank Foundation is finally venturing to restore the annex virtually to its former state. In this way, the Anne Frank House wants to create an immersive environment that gives users an impression of the living conditions in the annex at the time of WWII. Although it is obvious from the outset that the resource under review is not a digital edition in the classical sense, it is nevertheless reviewed on the assumption that it is one according to the RIDE-‘Criteria for Reviewing Digital Editions and Resources’. It aims to emphasise the added value ‘Virtual Reality’ (VR) could have for digital edition practice. Einführung 1Das Anne Frank Haus (AFH) in Amsterdam beherbergt die Stätte, in welcher sich die Familie Frank und noch vier weitere Personen zwischen 1942 und 1944 vor dem aufrückenden Nazi-Regime versteckt hielten. In diesem Zeitraum verfasste Anne Frank ihr weltweit berühmt gewordenes Tagebuch, wodurch sie zu einer Symbolfigur für die Schrecken und Qualen des jüdischen Volks während der Shoah avancierte. Seit seiner Gründung im Jahr 1957 hat sich das AFH das Ziel gesetzt, das ehemalige Versteck der Familie Frank zu erhalten und ausgehend von Annes Leben „Ausstellungen, pädagogische Programme und Produkte“1, die sich mit der Gefahr von „Antisemitismus, Rassismus und Diskriminierung“2 auseinandersetzen, zu entwickeln. 2In diesem Rahmen nimmt die Stiftung eine Vorreiterstellung in der digitalen Kulturvermittlung ein. Durch die Schaffung des Onlineportals The Anne Frank House online (Anne Frank Stichting 2018a) können sich Menschen weltweit mit dem Schicksal der Anne Frank vom heimischen Computer aus befassen. Um diese Auseinandersetzung für jüngere Menschen möglichst interessant zu gestalten, schöpft das AFH allerneuste digitale Medienangebote aus. Dazu zählen neben einer Webseite auch Apps, YouTube-Videos, Google Arts & Culture-Sheets, Blogs, Soziale Medien, 360°-Videos und Virtual-Reality-Anwendungen (VR-App). 3Vorwiegend soll das Augenmerk in dieser Rezension auf zwei Angebote des AFH, die über die Einstiegsseite des Onlineportals erreichbar sind, gerichtet werden: die VR-App Anne Frank House VR (AFHVR, Anne Frank Stichting 2018b) und die Browseranwendung The Secret Annex (TSA, Anne Frank Stichting 2018c). Die Angebote sind nicht stationär gebunden und können von überall abgerufen werden. Beide Projekte stehen im engen Zusammenhang und bieten eine digitale Rekonstruktion des Hinterhauses im Zustand, wie es zwischen 1942 und 1944 aussah; also in jenem Zeitraum, in welchem sich die Familie Frank dort versteckt hielt. Darüber hinaus soll in diesem Beitrag evaluiert werden, ob diese beiden Simulationen die Kriterien für eine digitale Edition erfüllen könnten. Eine digitale Edition ist bei ihrer Korpusbildung bekanntlich nicht darauf beschränkt, allein Textträger in Form von beschriebenen Blättern, sondern auch Dokumente von weitaus komplexerer Materialität erschließend wiederzugeben, wie etwa Inschriften auf Wänden, Skulpturen oder Tontafeln.3 Daneben gibt es außerdem seit Längerem Diskussionen darüber, wie 3D-Simulationen nutzbringend in einen editionswissenschaftlichen Kontext eingebettet werden können. Federführend in diesem Diskurs sind Costas Papadopoulos und Susan Schreibman vom Projekt Pure3D in Maastricht zu nennen (Pure3D 2023). In ihrem bereits 2019 erschienenen Aufsatz Towards 3D Scholarly Editions beschreiben Papadopoulos und Schreibman die Möglichkeit, mithilfe von 3D-Simulationen komplexe räumliche und zeitliche Ereignisse, wie im konkreten Beispiel eine Schlacht, editorisch aufzubereiten (Papadopoulos und Schreibman 2019). Aus diesem Grund erfüllen die beiden Angebote des AFH grundsätzlich die Voraussetzung, um als eine digitale Edition betrachtet werden zu können. Ähnlich zu den Projekten von Pure3D wird bei den Projekten des AFH versucht, ein komplexes räumlich-zeitliches Moment zu erschließen. Diese Erschließung erfolgt ebenfalls, wie von Papadopoulos und Schreibman (2019) nebst weiteren Kriterien für die 3D Scholarly Edition gefordert, durch den Einsatz von Kommentaren, die sich verstreut über das Szenario ausfindig machen lassen. Dennoch soll an dieser Stelle betont werden, dass die beiden immersiven Angebote des AFH in ihrem Selbstverständnis keine kritische Edition darstellen. Wie sich noch zeigen wird, will die Stiftung mit diesem Angebot eine digital-immersive Lernplattform für junge Menschen schaffen. Im Folgenden wird das Projekt des AFH dennoch unter den bekannten RIDE-Kriterien für eine kritische digitale Edition bewertet, um zu sehen, wie beide Welten – diejenige der digitalen Museumsdidaktik und diejenige der digitalen Editionswissenschaft – zukünftig Synergien schaffen könnten. Deswegen wird der Begriff ,Edition‘ nur in einfachen Anführungszeichen gesetzt erscheinen, wenn er in Bezug auf die beiden Projekte genannt wird. 4Das Projekt AFHVR wurde vom AFH in Zusammenarbeit mit Vertigo Games (Force Field Entertainment) und Oculus realisiert. Finanziert wurde das Projekt von der Anne Frank Stiftung mit Unterstützung von Oculus.4 Die Applikation wurde 2018 veröffentlicht und steht seit 2019 in einer aktualisierten Form im App-Store von Oculus zum Download zur Verfügung.5 Im Impressum werden Martin de Ronde und Hans Tasma als Verantwortliche für die technische Infrastruktur genannt, sowie Ellen van der Kraan, Charlotte Besmann und Tom Brink für die kuratorische Aufbereitung der App. 5TSA ist vermutlich schon seit 2010 über das Onlineportal abrufbar und fußt auf einem gleichnamigen Vorgängerprojekt, welches auf der Grundlage von 360°-Videos aufbaute. Leider ist die Informationslage über die Entwicklung und die Publikationsgeschichte recht dürftig. Ansprechpartner*innen und Entwickler*innen zu diesem Projekt werden nicht genannt. 6Generell gestaltet sich der Zugriff auf Projektmetadaten schwierig. Alle Metadaten, die ermittelt werden konnten, finden sich verstreut in einzelnen Pressemitteilungen, Blogeinträgen und in YouTube-Videos, die für diese Rezension ausgewertet wurden. Für das AFH im Allgemeinen steht ein Impressum zur Verfügung. Zudem bietet die Stiftung diverse Wege zur Kontaktaufnahme an, z. B. über ein FAQ, ein Kontaktformular, telefonisch, via E-Mail oder über die diversen Sozialen Medien.6 Gegenstand und Inhalt 7Das AFH kristallisiert in verschiedenen Quellen drei Gründe für die Entwicklung und Bereitstellung von AFHVR und TSA heraus. Ein erstes Anliegen ist die virtuelle Rekonstruktion der Möbel im Hinterhaus. Nach dem Krieg entschied Otto Frank, der Vater von Anne, das Haus nicht wieder zu möblieren, nachdem es von den Nazis leergeräumt worden war. Darum ist das originale Gemäuer nicht mehr in dem Zustand, in dem Anne es 1944 verlassen musste.7 Als einen weiteren Anlass benennt das AFH den weltweiten Zugang zum Hinterhaus. Es möchte Menschen aus der ganzen Welt die Gelegenheit bieten, das Versteck der Anne Frank selbstständig erkunden zu können.8 Als letzten Impuls nennt das AFH die Barrierefreiheit. Infolge der Architektur ist das Hinterhaus leider nur fußläufig zu besichtigen. Das AFH möchte aber auch diejenigen erreichen, die aufgrund einer eingeschränkten Mobilität die originalen Räumlichkeiten nicht besuchen können.9 8Die beiden Projekte erweisen sich für die digitale Kulturvermittlung insofern als relevant, als sie einen vertiefenden informativen Einblick in die Lebensumstände und die Schreibstätte der Anne Frank gestatten. So kann der Entstehungskontext des berühmten Tagebuchs hautnah und immersiv10 erfahren werden; so, als wäre man selbst ein Teil der untergetauchten Gruppe. Gerade bei einem so belastenden Thema wie dem der Shoah erscheint es als präventive Maßnahme zur Vermeidung solcher Ereignisse wichtig, Gefühle und Regungen mittlerweile verstorbener Akteur*innen wieder aufleben zu lassen und ins kulturelle Gedächtnis zurückzurufen. Daher zeigen sich die Ressourcen in einem entsprechend gewollt düsteren Gewand, innerhalb welchem durch Beleuchtung, Geräusche und räumliche Enge ein mulmiger Charakter verstärkt wird. 9Die 3D-Szenarien sprengen damit jegliche navigatorischen Paradigmen von (digitalen) Editionen, die sich meistens auf die Buchmetapher berufen. Hier wird nicht mit einem 2D-Desktop und dem klassischen Maus-Tastatur-Interface agiert. Stattdessen wird durch das Tragen einer Datenbrille ein 360° umfassender Illusionsraum erzeugt, durch welchen mithilfe von zwei Kontrollern navigiert wird. Auf diese Weise wird die durch Leon Battista Alberti formulierte Fenstermetapher, die auch auf digitale Desktop-Editionen zutrifft, aufgelöst.11 Nutzende der App werden so buchstäblich in das Innere des Hinterhauses hineinversetzt und erhalten das Gefühl, von den Räumlichkeiten tatsächlich umgeben zu sein. 10Zuvor konnte das möblierte Hinterhaus im Zustand von Annes Aufenthalt nur über einige Fotografien erschlossen werden. Ferner ließ Otto Frank 1961 ein Modell aus Holz und Stoff mit der ursprünglichen Möblierung des Hauses anfertigen, um Museumsbesucher*innen einen Eindruck des damaligen Zustandes zu vermitteln.12 Insgesamt bietet die ,Edition‘ eine Fülle an Informationen rund um das Leben im Hinterhaus. Dazu zählen neben den erwähnten 360°-Aufnahmen bzw. Rekonstruktionen auch eine Kommentierung, die Zitation von Tagebuchauszügen, das Einbinden von Videos, sowie – nur in der VR-App enthalten – eine geführte Tour. Die App ist darüber hinaus in sieben Sprachen abrufbar. In TSA wird außerdem ein Querschnitt des Hinterhauses eingeblendet, der zur Navigation durch das virtuelle Versteck bestimmt ist. 11Die Kommentare können durch klickbare Symbole, die über den referierten Objekten erscheinen, abgerufen werden. Dabei gibt es einen wesentlichen Unterschied zwischen AFHVR und TSA. Während über die in TSA eingebetteten Icons Kontextkommentare, weiterführende Links und korrespondierende Videos eingesehen werden können, erscheinen durch das Klicken der Icons in der VR-Anwendung Zitate aus dem Tagebuch, die von einer Mädchenstimme vorgelesen werden. Abb. 1: Das Fernglas in der Hand. Abb. 2: Das Tagebuch in der Hand. 12 Darüber hinaus gibt es noch weitere nennenswerte Unterschiede zwischen der Browserversion und der VR-App: Der größte besteht wohl darin, dass für AFHVR eine digitale Rekonstruktion und somit ein digitales Bild die Grundlage bildet, während in TSA für die meisten Räume 360°-Fotografien angefertigt wurden. Diese Fotografien wurden jeweils von einem zentralen Standpunkt im Raum aus aufgenommen.13 Aufgrund dieser Tatsache kann man sich in der Browseranwendung lediglich um die eigene Achse drehen. Das Gegenteil dessen bietet die VR-App. Auf Basis der digitalen Rekonstruktion ist eine freie Bewegung zu jedem beliebigen Punkt im Raum möglich. Zudem können die App-Nutzenden mit wichtigen Objekten interagieren. Dazu zählen beispielsweise das Fernglas in Annes Zimmer (siehe Abb. 1) oder das Tagebuch (siehe Abb. 2), welches auf ihrem Schreibtisch liegt. Für das immersive Erlebnis stehen nicht nur visuelle, sondern auch auditive Elemente in der VR-Anwendung zur Verfügung. Ziele und Methoden 13Leider lassen sich Ziele und Absichten der beiden Projekte nur aus dem Kontext erschließen. Da es sich bei den Ressourcen um keine Edition handelt, liegt demnach auch kein editorischer Bericht im klassischen Sinn vor. Um an Informationen über die ,Edition‘ zu gelangen, müssen diverse externe Quellen konsultiert werden. Zu diesen Quellen zählen etwa Pressemitteilungen,14 Beschreibungen aus dem App-Store von Oculus 15 oder Videoreportagen auf YouTube (Der Spiegel 2012). Dieser Umstand hat womöglich auch damit zu tun, dass sich speziell dieses Angebot des AFH nicht an ein wissenschaftliches Publikum richtet. Vielmehr geht es darum, die schon erwähnten Kernpunkte – zeitliche Erschließung, weltweiter Zugang und Barrierefreiheit – stark zu machen und darüber hinaus ein junges Publikum anzusprechen. Das soll jedoch nicht bedeuten, dass ein wissenschaftlicher Mehrwert durch das Projekt völlig ausgeschlossen ist. Die Erschließung eines zeitlich begrenzten Zustands kann durchaus eine Relevanz für die Forschung haben. 14Neben dem Fehlen eines ,editorischen‘ Berichts ist zudem auffällig, dass für die Projekte keine spezifische Terminologie entwickelt wurde. Von Seiten des AFH wird kein Begriffsangebot gemacht, um die Entitäten in eine gängige Klassifizierung, wie ,Edition‘ oder ,Simulation‘, einzuordnen. Selbst die Eigenbezeichnung der Projekte ist nicht konsistent. So wird die App auf der Webseite des AFH als The Secret Annex in Virtual Reality beworben. Tatsächlich heißt die VR-Anwendung aber Anne Frank House VR.16 Eine spezielle Terminologie wird somit vermieden. In einer Pressemitteilung des Onlineportals wird zur Beschreibung der VR-Anwendung der Begriff virtual reality tour verwendet.17 Innerhalb des Portals findet diese Bezeichnung allerdings keine Verwendung. 15Aufgrund des Fehlens dieser Angaben lässt sich nicht reflektieren, welches Bestreben die Anwendung verfolgt. Generell konstatiert die DFG in Bezug auf die Erfassung von dreidimensionalen Objekten, dass „sich [bislang] keine Standards im Bereich der softwareunabhängigen Datenformate und der Dokumentation der Digitalisierung/Modellierung und der Resultate durchgesetzt [haben]“ (DFG 2016, 27). Daher konnte das AFH auch auf keine Standards oder auf eine ,best practice‘ zurückgreifen. Umsetzung und Präsentation Abb. 3: Fußsymbol zur Fortbewegung im Raum. 16 Wie auch im vorherigen Abschnitt ist bei der technischen Umsetzung grundlegend zwischen der VR-App und der Browserversion zu differenzieren. Die App wird in einem Format, welches für die Oculus Go, Rift und Quest sowie für Gear VR geeignet ist, herausgegeben. Die Webanwendung präsentiert sich wie üblich in HTML und ist somit mit jedem Browser lesbar. Die Bedienung von AFHVR gestaltet sich als intuitiv und bietet zudem Personen, die noch keine Erfahrung mit VR gemacht haben, eine Möglichkeit, sich schnell mit dem neuen Interface vertraut zu machen. Dies gelingt speziell dadurch, dass beim Start der Anwendung zunächst der Story Mode absolviert werden muss. In jenem Modus gibt es eine kleine Einführung, die zeigt, wie man sich im Raum bewegt (siehe Abb. 3), welche Bedeutung die verschiedenen Symbole haben und wie einzelne Objekte manipuliert werden können. Abb. 4: Türsymbol in Browseranwendung. 17 Die Navigation in TSA unterscheidet sich insofern von AFHVR, als dass sie mit der Computermaus gesteuert wird. Obwohl Barrierefreiheit eines der erklärten Ziele des AFH darstellt, scheint eine Navigation mit der Tastatur noch nicht möglich zu sein. Der Einstieg in die ,Edition‘ erfolgt im Browser durch einen Querschnitt des Hinterhauses. Durch das Klicken auf einen speziellen Raum öffnet sich das entsprechende Szenario mit einem kurzen Einführungstext. Anschließend kann man sich mithilfe der bereits erwähnten Icons durch das Haus fortbewegen. Ein Türsymbol (siehe Abb. 4) suggeriert einen Raumwechsel. Durch das Drücken der Maustaste und die gleichzeitige Bewegung kann die Kamera um die eigene Achse und von oben nach unten bewegt werden. 18Die Bildqualität in beiden Teilen der Anwendungen überzeugt durch ihre gestochene Schärfe. Teilweise ist die Wirkung der digitalen Bilder so ausgereift, dass nicht mit Sicherheit gesagt werden kann, ob es sich um eine ,echte‘ Fotografie oder um eine digitale Animation handelt. Die Grafik kann demzufolge mit modernsten Computersimulationen mithalten. Die Rekonstruktion überzeugt durch eine detailreiche Ausschmückung der einzelnen Räume, wodurch ein besonderer Grad der Immersion erreicht wird. Abb. 5: Unleserlicher Textträger. 19 Einige Dokumente, die in der ,Edition‘ auftauchen, sind jedoch trotz der exzellenten Grafik leider nicht lesbar. Dazu zählen etwa eine Wandkarte der Normandie, Bleistiftkritzeleien an der Wand, Briefe und Zeitschriften, die auf verschiedenen Möbelstücken liegen, sowie das Tagebuch selbst. Durch die Datenbrille betrachtet erscheinen diese Objekte bei Annäherung leider nur verschwommen. In der Browseranwendung, wo diese Dokumente nur aus der Ferne betrachtet werden können, öffnen sich beim Anklicken Fotografien, die ebenfalls zu unscharf sind und daher leider nicht für Forschungszwecke genutzt werden können (siehe Abb. 5). Abb. 6: Das Tagebuch in der VR-App. 20 Dieses Defizit erstaunt aufgrund der Tatsache, dass laut eines Videobeitrags des AFH alle Bilder und Texte an den Wänden abgenommen und einzeln faksimiliert wurden.18 Das Teilen dieser Daten hätte einen großen Mehrwert für die Forschung haben können. Es wäre zudem wünschenswert gewesen, wenn mit dem Tagebuch, welches sich in Annes Raum auf dem Schreibtisch befindet, mehr Interaktionen möglich gewesen wären. Leider ist dieses historisch hochgradig relevante Zeitzeugnis nur in verschlossener Form dargestellt. Innerhalb der VR-App lässt sich das Tagebuch mithilfe des Kontrollers aufheben und bewegen, aber bedauerlicherweise nicht öffnen (siehe Abb. 6). Auch an dieser Stelle soll erneut betont werden, dass sich das AFH mit ihrer Ressource nicht explizit an ein wissenschaftliches Publikum richtet. Eine digitale Animation des Tagebuchs würde der wissenschaftlichen Community freilich einen großen Wertzuwachs bieten, gleichzeitig hätte ein solches Vorhaben zu einer ungemeinen Kosten- und Aufwandsteigerung geführt. Abb. 7: Nicht nachgewiesenes Zitat aus dem Tagebuch. 21 Die Kommentierung, die nur bei TSA vorliegt, ist kurz und bündig gehalten. Eingebettete Links laden zu einer vertiefenden Lektüre ein. Viele größere Themenkomplexe werden in Videos ausgelagert. Die Kommentare sind in vier Sprachen (Deutsch, Englisch, Niederländisch und Spanisch) verfügbar. Damit wird die Anwendung ihrem adressierten Publikum, Jugendlichen, gerecht. Dennoch könnten die Zitate aus dem Tagebuch, die in der geführten VR-Tour auftauchen, noch nachgewiesen werden (siehe Abb. 7). Abb. 8: Wandkarte der Normandie. Abb. 9: Bild von Norma Shearer. 22 Metadaten zu einzelnen in den Räumen befindlichen Objekten sind bedauerlicherweise nicht abrufbar. Es wäre ein großer Gewinn für eine ,Edition‘ gewesen, wenn noch erhaltene Objekte mit dem digitalen Archiv,19 welches ebenfalls über das Onlineportal abrufbar ist, verknüpft wären. Zu nennen ist hier etwa die erwähnte Wandkarte der Normandie (siehe Abb. 8) oder ein über Annes Schreibtisch aufgeklebtes Bild von Norma Shearer (siehe Abb. 9).20 23Ferner werden keinerlei Angaben dazu gemacht, welche Objekte der Simulation tatsächlich rekonstruiert21 und welche nur als ,Lückenfüller‘ für nicht überlieferte Stellen im Raum hinzugefügt wurden. In diesem Rahmen wäre es auch interessant gewesen, die originalen Maßangaben der Objekte zu erfahren. Ein solches Desiderat hätte mithilfe eines editorischen Berichts oder der Verlinkung zum bereits vorhandenen Archiv hinzugefügt werden können. Ansonsten ist TSA gut mit den anderen Inhalten des Portals vernetzt. Es kann nicht nur aus dem Projekt heraus auf andere Inhalte des AFH zugegriffen, auch vice versa kann von verschiedenen Artikeln sowie aus digitalen Lerneinheiten auf einzelne Räume der Simulation verwiesen werden.22 24Die Zitation von einzelnen Räumen und Objekten gestaltet sich erstaunlich einfach. Zwar gibt es in Bezug auf die Zitation von Simulationen noch keine wirklichen bibliografischen Standards, aber trotzdem verfügt jeder Kommentar und jeder Raum über einen separaten und eindeutigen Link, der geteilt werden kann. Auf diese Weise können gezielte Informationen aus den beiden Simulationen in andere Projekte, wie etwa in digitale Lerneinheiten, einbezogen werden. Dem gegenüber ist die Zitation aus der VR-Anwendung deutlich schwieriger. Hier können bislang nur Screenshots oder Screencasts aufgenommen, jedoch keine Links erzeugt werden.23 25Lobenswert ist hervorzuheben, dass die VR-App von Oculus lizenziert ist und somit im offiziellen Store geführt werden darf. Auf diese Weise kann die App einfach auf die Datenbrille heruntergeladen werden. Damit hebt sich die App von vielen anderen Apps aus dem Kulturbereich ab,24 die nicht lizenziert sind. Diese müssen aufwendig über alternative Stores wie SideQuest auf das Endgerät geladen werden. Da dieser Vorgang aber wesentlich komplizierter ist und ein technisches Know-how voraussetzt, bietet AFHVR durch diesen Umstand einen leichten Zugang für alle, unabhängig von der jeweiligen technischen Affinität. Durch den Download ist es außerdem möglich, die App offline nutzen zu können. Dies ist ebenfalls ein positiv zu bewertender Punkt. 26Das AFH pflegt weltweit Kontakte zu Wissenschaft und Forschung und versteht sich selbst als eine zentrale Anlaufstelle für die Aufarbeitung und Erforschung der Shoah bzw. des Lebens der Anne Frank. In diesem Rahmen richtet die Stiftung weltweit Ausstellungen aus und veranstaltet diverse Bildungsprogramme.25 Daneben betreibt das AFH auch das Anne Frank Youth Network, womit die Organisation junge Menschen weltweit motivieren will, sich gegen Rassismus, Antisemitismus und Vorurteile zu engagieren.26 Aufgrund dessen agiert das AFH intensiv auf den Sozialen Medien. Neben Facebook und Twitter ist die Stiftung auch auf Instagram und YouTube aktiv. In allen Netzwerken werden mit einer hohen Frequenz Inhalte rund um das AFH geteilt. Dennoch dienen die Sozialen Medien primär dazu, die Stiftung zu bewerben. Sie können daher nur indirekt als Austauschplattform für die ,Edition‘ genutzt werden. 27Leider ist das Projekt nicht als GitHub-Repository o. Ä. verfügbar. Solchermaßen hätte das AFH zur Modellbildung für die technische Realisierung und Archivierung von VR-Simulationen im wissenschaftlichen Kontext beitragen können. Andere Institutionen, die ähnliche Projekte planen, hätten so von den zu Verfügung gestellten Daten profitieren können. Demnach sind die Grunddaten für eine ,Edition‘ auch nicht online abrufbar. In welchem Datenformat die Daten der Ressource vorliegen, konnte nicht ermittelt werden. 28Dieser Umstand führt darüber hinaus zu einem Problem für die nachhaltige Nutzbarkeit. Das Projekt gilt zwar offiziell seit dem überarbeiteten Launch im Jahr 2018 als abgeschlossen, allerdings bleibt eine dauerhafte Abrufbarkeit der möglichen ,Edition‘ aufgrund der mangelnden Einsicht in die Grunddaten fraglich. Die Webseite und damit TSA sind an das AFH gekoppelt und fallen in seine Verantwortlichkeit. Die App und die dazugehörige Datenstruktur sind wiederum an den Entwickler Force Field gebunden. Sollte dieser irgendwann nicht mehr existieren, kann nur gehofft werden, dass das AFH die entsprechenden Maßnahmen treffen wird, um die Daten selbst zu hosten. 29Bezüglich des Copyrights werden keine Angaben gemacht. Laut dem Oculus-Store ist Force Field für den Inhalt der VR-App verantwortlich. Ein Lizenzmodell wie das der Creative Commons wird nicht verwendet. Dennoch scheint das AFH eine Nachnutzung zu unterstützen. Daher steht die App einerseits kostenlos zum Download zur Verfügung, andererseits hat das AFH seine gesamten digitalen Materialien aus dem Onlineportal für Lernplattformen wie LessonUp zur Verfügung gestellt.27 Fazit 30Bevor darüber entschieden werden kann, ob es sich bei dem rezensierten Projekt um eine Edition handelt oder nicht, sollten vorab ein paar wesentliche Punkte hervorgehoben werden: Zum einen verwendet das AFH selbst den Begriff ,Edition‘ nicht. Generell hält sich die Stiftung bei der grundlegenden Terminologie über AFHVR und TSA recht verschlossen. Zum anderen geht an verschiedenen Stellen hervor, dass das Projekt nicht zwangsläufig für Forschungszwecke bestimmt ist, sondern viel mehr darauf ausgelegt ist, das Interesse von Schüler*innen und Jugendlichen im Allgemeinen für das Leben der Anne Frank zu erwecken. Dennoch wird für das folgende Fazit die Prämisse angenommen, es handele sich um eine digitale Edition. Dies geschieht, um aufzuzeigen, welcher Mehrwert sich zukünftig sowohl für den musealen Sektor als auch für die digitale Editionswissenschaft durch ihre Fusion im digitalen dreidimensionalen Raum entstehen kann: 31Aus den genannten Gründen, die das Selbstverständnis des Projekts und die angesprochene Rezipient*innengruppe betreffen, konnte in dieser Rezension aufgezeigt werden, dass viele ,editorische Basics‘ gar nicht oder nur teilweise vorhanden sind. Insbesondere fehlt das ,Herzstück‘ einer (digitalen) Edition: der editorische Bericht. Aufgrund dieses Mangels werden weitere grundlegende Parameter einer Edition nicht erfüllt. Dieser Umstand wird speziell durch die nicht vorhandene Dokumentation der Rekonstruktion exemplifiziert. Hier ist ein deutliches Defizit in der Transparenz feststellbar, da nicht eindeutig hervorgeht, wo ein Gegenstand rekonstruiert und wo er allein als ,Lückenfüller‘ eingesetzt wurde. Vereinfacht ausgedrückt können wir nicht mit Sicherheit sagen, was in dem Projekt auf historischen Fakten beruht und was der Fantasie der Entwickler*innen entsprungen ist. Daher ist das Projekts für wissenschaftliche Zwecke nicht zu verwenden. Dennoch, um diesen Sachverhalt erneut ins Zentrum zu rücken, muss es dieser Absicht auch gar nicht beikommen, da es sich in seinem Selbstverständnis als didaktisches Hilfsmittel versteht. 32Maßgeblich standen dieser Rezension nur wenige Metadaten über das Projekt zur Verfügung. Alle Informationen mussten dezentral aus verschiedenen Webseiten und aus Videobeiträgen zusammengetragen werden. Zudem werden viele wichtige Informationen auch nur implizit genannt und müssen aus dem größeren Kontext erschlossen werden. Ein Großteil der Fragen aus dem Katalog zur Evaluierung von digitalen Editionen (Sahle 2014) konnte schlicht gar nicht beantwortet werden. Das führt folgerichtig zu einem weiteren Problem, welches das wissenschaftliche Qualitätsniveau betrifft. Aus den genannten Gründen werden, wie schon erwartet, die Kriterien für eine digitale Edition nicht erfüllt. Dabei würde ein solches Unterfangen nicht an der grundsätzlichen Unmöglichkeit scheitern, eine VR-Anwendung in ihrem Wesen als Edition zu verstehen, sondern aufgrund der Nicht-Erfüllung der editorischen Mindestanforderungen in diesem konkreten Fall. 33Prinzipiell verfügt eine VR-Anwendung nichtsdestoweniger über die Voraussetzungen, die Paradigmen einer digitalen Edition erfüllen zu können. Denn am Beispiel der digitalen Rekonstruktion des AFH wird deutlich, dass die wesentlichen Parameter für eine digitale Edition vorhanden sind: Letztlich findet hier in Grundzügen vergleichbar mit den Ansätzen von Papadopoulos und Schreibman „eine erschließende Wiedergabe“ (Sahle 2014)28 eines komplexen räumlichen und zeitlichen Ereignisses statt. Wobei der Editionsgegenstand dieses Projekts nicht ein Dokument in Form eines beschriebenen Blattes Papier darstellt, sondern ein Ort ist, der in einem gewissen historischen Moment existierte und durch eine ,Edition‘ erschlossen werden könnte. Infolgedessen wäre es für das AFH durch Nacharbeitung möglich, zu einer 3D-Edition im Sinne von Papadopoulos und Schreibman zu werden – wenn sie es denn wollten. 34Auch wenn das Projekt wie erwartet die Kriterien für eine digitale Edition nicht hinreichend erfüllt, so erreicht es aber trotzdem seine selbstgesteckten Ziele weitestgehend. Das Projekt verfolgt dabei, wie bereits erwähnt, drei verschiedene Absichten. Als erstes und vordergründig steht die zeitliche Konservierung und (Re)Möblierung des Hinterhauses im Fokus. Dieses Vorhaben ist definitiv gelungen. Auf Grundlage von Bildern und dem Holzmodell ist es digital möglich, das gesamte Hinterhaus in seinem möblierten Erscheinungsbild zwischen 1942 und 1944 zu begehen. Durch den Einsatz der VR-App ist diese Besichtigung als immersives und einprägsames Erlebnis zugänglich. Die zweite Absicht zielt auf einen weltweiten Zugang zum AFH ab und kann ebenfalls als erfüllt betrachtet werden. Neben der kostenlosen App steht die Seite als HTML-Page zur Verfügung und kann grundsätzlich von jedem Browser weltweit abgerufen werden. Der letztgenannte und ein Stück weit auch innovativste Anlass für das Projekt wird durch den barrierefreien Zugang zur historischen Stätte formuliert. Da das originale Gemäuer nur über sehr enge Gänge und schmale Treppen begangen werden kann, ist das echte Hinterhaus leider nicht barrierefrei. Umbaumaßnahmen würden aber vermutlich das Aussehen des denkmalgeschützten Hauses erheblich verändern, wenn diese denn überhaupt möglich sind. Daher ist die Idee, das Hinterhaus über VR für Menschen mit körperlichen Einschränkungen akzessibel zu machen, ein hochgradig interessanter Ansatz, der auch für andere Kulturstätten modellbildenden Charakter haben könnte. Nichtsdestoweniger könnte die Webseite per se noch barrierefreier gestaltet werden. So sollten für Personen mit einer Sehschwäche Alternativtexte zur Bildbeschreibung im Quellcode ergänzt oder eine Navigation mit der Tastatur innerhalb von TSA ermöglicht werden. Insgesamt wird die Simulation ihren Zielen gerecht, wenn bedacht wird, an wen sie sich richtet und dass sie nicht für die Forschung bestimmt ist. Sie ist bestimmt in der Lage, das Interesse bei jungen Menschen für Anne Franks Leben im Hinterhaus zu erwecken. 35Daneben können zukünftige digitale Editionen aus diesem Projekt etwas mitnehmen. Aufgrund der kompletten Auflösung des Buchparadigmas innerhalb der VR-App bietet das Projekt einen völlig neuartigen Ansatz. Denn VR bietet die Chance, zukünftig auch Gegenstände zu edieren, die bislang aufgrund der Verhaftung der meisten Editionen an der Zweidimensionalität noch gar nicht in Betracht gezogen wurden (Sahle 2013, 270–271). In der Folge könnte mithilfe von VR und Augmented Reality (AR) etwa ein Gebäude wie das AFH ,edierbar‘ gemacht werden. Dies gelingt speziell durch die bereits erwähnte Auflösung der Fenstermetapher, die nicht nur für das analoge Buch, sondern auch für die digitale Desktop-Edition gilt. Denn auch 3D-Simulationen am PC werden durch ,Rahmen‘ begrenzt, sei es das Browserfenster oder der Bildschirm selbst. Durch diese Auflösung sehen Nutzende der App nicht nur auf ein begrenztes Szenario, sondern werden direkt von ihm umgeben. Und genau hierin besteht die Stärke von VR für die Editionswissenschaft. Durch dieses neue Mittel zur Reproduktion von Räumlichkeit vermag das Digitale zukünftig auch Gegenstände zu edieren, an denen eine Buchausgabe basal gescheitert wäre. Denn geradewegs Räumlichkeit und die dritte Dimension bringen das zweidimensionale Buch an seine Grenzen. 36Durch die Simulation des AFH ergibt sich für den wissenschaftlichen Gebrauch insofern ein Mehrwert, als dass ziemlich eindringlich nachvollzogen werden kann, wie und unter welchen Bedingungen das Tagebuch der Anne Frank entstanden ist. Durch das immersive Erlebnis mit der Datenbrille entsteht das Gefühl, als würde der Schriftstellerin bei der Produktion des Tagebuchs über die Schultern geblickt werden. Einzelne Passagen des Buches können mit ,realen‘ Gegenständen, die sich im Hinterhaus befanden, verortet und kontextualisiert, gewisse beschriebene Ereignisse nachvollzogen oder gar nacherlebt werden. Das durch das Tagebuch beschriebene Hinterhaus kann vom heimischen PC aus besucht und erforscht werden, was der Wissenschaft einen riesigen Vorteil bietet. Dennoch müssten die weiter oben angeführten Kritikpunkte, die die qualitative Sicherung betreffen, nachgearbeitet werden, wenn die Simulation für wissenschaftliche Zwecke fruchtbar gemacht werden sollte. Ausgehend von dieser letztgenannten Prämisse sollen im Folgenden einige Verbesserungsvorschläge angeführt werden, die darauf abzielen, die Simulation für Forschungszwecke attraktiver zu gestalten. 37Das bei Weitem größte Defizit würde sich im Fehlen eines editorischen Berichts offenbaren. Dieser müsste nachgereicht werden und sowohl einige Grundangaben nachtragen als auch die Rekonstruktionsprinzipien offenlegen. Darunter müssten auf Metaebene Informationen zu Ansprechpartner*innen in Form eines Projektorganigramms und Informationen zu den verschiedenen Launchs und Versionen angegeben werden. Analog zu ,klassischen‘ Editionen müsste das AFH angeben, welches Ziel dieses Projekt verfolgt, auf welcher Grundlage die Objekte rekonstruiert worden sind, welche Verfahren angewandt wurden und wo eventuelle Wissenslücken bestehen. 38Die Tatsache, dass die App durch den Spieleentwickler Force Field umgesetzt wurde, kam zwar der grafischen Umsetzung sehr entgegen, führt aber auch dazu, dass hier ein Unternehmen mit wirtschaftlichem Interesse involviert ist. Dies führt wiederum dazu, dass die Quellcodes zur Nachnutzung nicht zur Verfügung stehen. TSA und AFHVR sind zwar kostenlos abrufbar, aber keine Open Source-Projekte. Andere kulturelle Einrichtungen können somit nicht von der technischen Infrastruktur des AFH profitieren. Eine Bereitstellung der Quelltexte auf der Webseite oder ein GitHub Repository könnten hier Abhilfe schaffen. 39Wünschenswert wäre zudem eine Zusammenarbeit mit der kritischen digitalen Tagebuchedition zu den Manuskripten der Anne Frank, die ebenfalls vom AFH mitherausgegeben wird (Bruijn et al. 2021). Die eingeblendeten Zitate könnten mit der digitalen Edition verlinkt werden, sodass eine vertiefende Lektüre möglich ist. Sowohl in AFHVR und TSA kann jeweils nur der Einband des Tagebuchs betrachtet und bewegt, jedoch nicht geöffnet werden. Es könnte sich an dieser Stelle lohnen, die Faksimiles aus der digitalen Edition einzubeziehen, sodass das Tagebuch innerhalb der Simulation an Annes virtuellem Schreibtisch, also an der primären Produktionsstätte des Werks, gelesen werden kann. Auf diese Weise würde eine noch nie dagewesene Leseerfahrung entstehen, die sowohl Produktion als auch Rezeption miteinander verknüpft. 40Gleichzeitig könnte die Tagebuchedition vice versa von der Simulation profitieren. Derartig findet nämlich schon im Abschnitt Locaties eine Verortung zwischen den Tagebucheinträgen und den Räumlichkeiten des Hinterhauses statt.29 Diese Ortsbestimmung wird mithilfe eines Querschnitts visualisiert. Beim Anklicken eines Raums filtert die Edition alle Zitate, die mit diesem Raum in Verbindung stehen, heraus. Zukünftig könnte die Tagebuchedition mit geringem Aufwand eine Verlinkung zur Simulation einfügen, um so direkt auf beschriebene Objekte oder Stellen im Raum zu verweisen. 41Generell können die Dokumente, die in den Räumlichkeiten des Hinterhauses mit der VR-Brille betrachtet werden, nicht gelesen werden. Die Textträger sind zu unscharf, als dass sie entziffert werden könnten. Dennoch wäre es denkbar, die Faksimiles von Briefen, Zeitungen, Bildern und Kritzeleien an der Wand noch nachträglich in das Szenario einzufügen, damit die Dokumente in ihrer ursprünglichen kontextuellen Einbettung rezipiert werden können. 42Zusätzlich wäre es hilfreich, wenn noch erhaltene Objekte und Dokumente, die in der Simulation auftauchen, neben der Annotation mit dem Archiv des AFH verlinkt werden würden. Im Zuge dessen hätten Interessent*innen eine Option, an weitere Metadaten wie Größe, Aufenthaltsort oder Zustand zu kommen. 43Als kleine Anregung wäre noch einzubringen, dass die Suchfunktion der AFH-Webseite leider nicht auf die Simulation anwendbar ist. Es würde eine große Hilfestellung bieten, wenn zukünftig die Objekte aus der Simulation auch in der Suchfunktion erscheinen würden. Überdies ist die Maushandhabung zu fein reguliert, sodass ruckartige Bewegungen vermieden werden sollten. 44Wie erwartet werden die Kriterien einen digitalen Edition nicht erfüllt. Dennoch sei abschließend hervorgehoben, dass diese beiden Angebote des AFH ihrem Zweck gerecht werden. Im Allgemeinen muss dem AFH ein großes Lob für sein Onlineportal ausgesprochen werden. Es gibt bislang nur wenige kulturelle Einrichtungen, die in dem Maß, wie es das AFH tut, aus den digitalen Vollen schöpfen. Für Jugendliche und auch Erwachsene leistet die Stiftung auf diese Weise weltweit einen wertvollen Beitrag zur digitalen Aufarbeitung der Shoah. Anmerkungen [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124161526/https://www.annefrank.org/de/uber-uns/was-wir-tun/. [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124161526/https://www.annefrank.org/de/uber-uns/was-wir-tun/. [3] Zu nennen ist hier etwa das Projekt Deutsche Inschriften Online: https://www.inschriften.net/, oder etwa die Arbeiten von Pure3D, insb. The Battle of Mount Street Bridge: https://mountstreet1916.ie/. Die Liste ließe sich noch weiter fortsetzen. [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124155802/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2019/7/4/renewed-vr-tour-anne-franks-secret-annex/. [5] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124155802/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2019/7/4/renewed-vr-tour-anne-franks-secret-annex/. [6] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124162002/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/contact/. [7] https://artsandculture.google.com/story/SAUBp8B2mXzPKw (15.02.2023). [8] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124162318/https://www.annefrank.org/de/uber-uns/nachrichten-und-presse/news-de/2019/7/4/erneuerter-vr-rundgang-durch-anne-franks-versteck/. [9] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124160055/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2018/6/12/anne-frank-house-vr-launched/. [10] Der Begriff ,immersiv‘ und das dazugehörige Nomen ,Immersion‘ bilden zusammen die Grundeigenschaft von VR. Unter dem Begriff ist das Eintauchen (lat. immersio) der Rezipierenden in das Zielmedium zu verstehen. Dabei werden durch den umgebenden 360°-Illusionsraum sämtliche Grenzen zwischen Rezipient*in und Medium aufgelöst und dieser Effekt mithilfe von vornehmlich audiovisuellen Mitteln verstärkt (Grau 2000, 25–26). [11] Alberti warf 1435 in seiner Abhandlung über Malerei und Perspektive De Pictura als erster die Idee auf, den Rahmen eines Bildes als ein geöffnetes Fenster anzusehen (Friedberg 2006, 1–2). [12] https://web.archive.org/save/https://artsandculture.google.com/story/SAUBp8B2mXzPKw und https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/anne-frank-collection/40/scale-model-part-1/. [13] Ob diese Aufnahmen aus der ersten Projektphase stammen, wofür das Museum extra geschlossen und möbliert wurde, oder im Rahmen des Studioaufbaus für die Produktion von Anne Franks Videotagebüchern, konnte nicht ermittelt werden. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/SAUBp8B2mXzPKw (15.02.2023) und https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY8b5ptxWsI. [14] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124160055/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2018/6/12/anne-frank-house-vr-launched/ und https://web.archive.org/web/20240124155802/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2019/7/4/renewed-vr-tour-anne-franks-secret-annex/. [15] https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1596151970428159/. [16] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124161732/https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/web-and-digital/ und https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1596151970428159/. [17] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124155802/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2019/7/4/renewed-vr-tour-anne-franks-secret-annex/. [18] https://web.archive.org/web/20240124155802/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2019/7/4/renewed-vr-tour-anne-franks-secret-annex/. [19] http://web.archive.org/web/20240125143612/https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/collection/. [20] https://hdl.handle.net/21.12139/a21c60eb-0f64-495c-ace9-d5660077193d und https://hdl.handle.net/21.12139/88998591-14ed-41da-94fc-895cc1d445a3. [21] D. h. aufgrund von belegtem Wissen wie durch Fotografien, Erzählungen oder auf Grundlage des Holzmodells von Otto Frank. [22] http://web.archive.org/web/20240125145447/https://www.lessonup.com/nl/channel/annefrank/lesson/mB3MbYQpZjKMsvjYN. [23] Hier sei erwähnt, dass das Aufnehmen von Screenshots und Screencasts kein Angebot der App selbst ist, sondern eine standardmäßige Option von Oculus. https://www.meta.com/help/quest/articles/in-vr-experiences/social-features-and-sharing/take-a-screenshot-oculus/. [24] Als Beispiel sei hier die App von Radiance genannt, einer Plattform für VR-Kunst: http://web.archive.org/web/20240125150413/https://sidequestvr.com/app/5915/radiance-vr-app. [25] http://web.archive.org/web/20240125150805/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/what-we-do/worldwide-activities/. [26] http://web.archive.org/web/20240125151206/https://www.annefrank.org/en/education/anne-frank-youth-network/. [27] http://web.archive.org/web/20240125145447/https://www.lessonup.com/nl/channel/annefrank/lesson/mB3MbYQpZjKMsvjYN. [28] In diesem Fall muss der Dokumentbegriff sehr weit gedacht werden. [29] Bruijn et al. 2021: https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.annefrankmanuscripten.org/wegwijzer/locaties/prinsengracht263. Bibliographie Anne Frank Stichting, ed. 2018a. The Anne Frank House online. https://web.archive.org/web/20250410134737/https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/web-and-digital/. Anne Frank Stichting, ed. 2018b. Anne Frank House VR. https://web.archive.org/web/20250315073649/https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/what-we-do/publications/anne-frank-house-virtual-reality/. Anne Frank Stichting, ed. 2018c. The Secret Annex. https://web.archive.org/web/20250410134801/https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/secret-annex/. Bruijn, Peter de, ed. 2021. Anne Frank Manuscripten. https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.annefrankmanuscripten.org/. DFG. 2016. DFG-Praxisregeln ˈDigitalisierungˈ. https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/foerderung/programme/lis/12_151_v1216_de.pdf. Friedberg, Anne. 2006. The Virtual Window: from Alberti to Microsoft. Cambridge: MIT Press. Grau, Oliver. 2000. Virtuelle Kunst in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Visuelle Strategien. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Papadopoulos, Costas, and Schreibman, Susan. 2019. “Towards 3D Scholarly Editions: The Battle of Mount Street Bridge.” International Journal of Digital Humanities 13 (1): http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/13/1/000415/000415.html. Pure 3D. 2023. An Infrastructure for the Publication and Preservation of 3D Scholarship. https://web.archive.org/web/20240503184758/https://pure3d.eu/. Radiance. 2023. The International Research Platform For Virtual Reality Experiences In Art. https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.radiancevr.co/. Sahle, Patrick. 2014. “Criteria for Reviewing Scholarly Digital Editions, version 1.1.” https://web.archive.org/web/20240124160901/https://www.i-d-e.de/publikationen/weitereschriften/criteria-version-1-1/. Sahle, Patrick. 2013. Digitale Editionsformen, 1: Das typografische Erbe. Schriften des Instituts für Dokumentologie und Editorik Bd. 8. Norderstedt: BoD. Der Spiegel. 2012. “ 3D-Erinnerung: Das virtuelle Anne Frank Haus.“ YouTube video, 4:32. Posted 2012. https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY8b5ptxWsI. Abbildungen Abb. 1: Das Fernglas in der Hand. Abb. 2: Das Tagebuch in der Hand. Abb. 3: Fußsymbol zur Fortbewegung im Raum. Abb. 4: Türsymbol in Browseranwendung. Abb. 5: Unleserlicher Textträger. Abb. 6: Das Tagebuch in der VR-App. Abb. 7: Nicht nachgewiesenes Zitat aus dem Tagebuch. Abb. 8: Wandkarte der Normandie. Abb. 9: Bild von Norma Shearer. </paste>
Sewing text and images together in the digital environment. A review of Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition
Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition, Martin K. Foys (ed.), 2003; 2011. http://www.sd-editions.com/bayeux/online/ (Last Accessed: 27.01.2024). Reviewed by Manuele Veggi (Sapienza University of Rome), manuele.veggi@uniroma1.it. || Abstract: The following contribution is focused on Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition (BTDE), a project addressed to … Sewing text and images together in the digital environment. A review of Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition Read More »
Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition, Martin K. Foys (ed.), 2003; 2011. http://www.sd-editions.com/bayeux/online/ (Last Accessed: 27.01.2024). Reviewed by Manuele Veggi (Sapienza University of Rome), manuele.veggi@uniroma1.it. || Abstract: The following contribution is focused on Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition (BTDE), a project addressed to a heterogeneous audience that aims to describe this famous embroidery from different perspectives. Indeed, not only does this scholarly edigital edition (SDE) provide a high-quality facsimile of this artwork, but it also tries to reconstruct its historical and cultural background. This review mainly aims at describing the contents of the edition and their presentation, considering also the available approaches and tools when BTDE was first published. Moreover, it suggests possible further implementations and highlights minor issues in the sustainability and in the rendering of the Latin inscriptions. The review will show how the project can be considered a pioneering example of a scholarly digital edition, which managed to reconstruct the complexity of the chosen document in a digital environment, proposing an interesting solution to combine multimedia assets. Introduction 1The Bayeux Tapestry is an almost 70-meter-long embroidery visually and verbally describing the events related to William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings (1066). The narration of the deeds is provided by a variegated iconographic apparatus and short Latin inscriptions, which make the Tapestry “a historical account, but also an essential source of information on the way of life in the Middle Ages: it is therefore a documentary record which employs particular narrative techniques and makes use of symbolism” (UNESCO 2006, 1). 2Its complex nature and its historical relevance awoke considerable historical interest in the field of scholarly editions. The Tapestry was rediscovered in 1728 by Bernard de Montfaucon, who curated the first facsimile reproduction; this edition was followed in the nineteenth century by two other reproductions by Charles Sothard (ante 1824) and Elizabeth Wardle (1885). The embroidery later enjoyed long-lasting philological fame also during the last century, in particular thanks to the critical editions by Sir Frank Stenton (1965), David M. Wilson (1985), and Bernstein (1986) (see Spear 1992). This established editorial tradition led to the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition (BTDE), which aims to reproduce the embroidery to exploit the possibilities of the digital environment to provide a new reading experience to the user. 3This project was developed from 1996 to 2002 thanks to the partial funding of Loyola University Chicago, a pioneering research hub in the field of scholarly digital editions (e.g., see the Charles Harpur Critical Archive), with the main collaboration of the Center for Research and Creativity at Florida State University and Hood College. The development team was directed by Martin K. Foys, Assistant Professor of English at Hood College, who is responsible for the major textual and paratextual content of the scholarly digital edition (SDE). Erica L. Pittman contributed as an editor, while James Caccamo and Jody Evenson joined the project as graphic designers and contributed to the development of its CD-ROM distribution: the first edition was indeed firstly commercialised on this support – the web version, which is the reference of the current review, is a revised edition and was published almost a decade later. This general information is easily accessible from the website section “Credits”, where also their email addresses1 are indicated. Subject and Content of the Edition Fig. 1: A traditional edition of the Bayeux Tapestry (here, Gameson 1997). To render the details, the embroidery is segmented into different plates. 4The project is a true pioneer in the field of scholarly digital editions of multimedia documents. The major innovation is its endeavour to mediate between a “reader-oriented” and a “document-oriented” approach. The “Introduction” page observes that in the previous printed editions (e.g. see Fig. 1), the document was either subdivided into high-quality, detailed segments or described through a small-scale reproduction of large narrative blocks. BTDE is, hence, an interesting negotiation between continuity and fragmentation: the continuity of the embroidery is preserved, yet each panel is enhanced with high-quality reproductions, commentaries, and ancillary media. 5Indeed, the project “maintains a semblance of editorial control (and stability) by presenting its material in a docucentric structure” (Foys 2011, Introduction), as most of the resources are anchored to the Tapestry displayed on the home page. Thanks to this editorial choice, BTDE can be considered a forerunner of a standard model of SDE – later described in Pierazzo (2017, 2) – characterised by the “centrality” and the “pervasive presence of reproductions”. As a matter of fact, the edition proposes to the reader a high-fidelity reproduction of the embroidery, based on the critical edition published by Wilson in 1985. This version can also be compared from the “Versions” dropdown menu with three relevant facsimile reproductions: Montfaucon’s (1728), Stothard’s (1828), and Reading City Museum’s by Wardle (1885). This choice is led by two considerations. Firstly, it uses these copies as descripti to identify possible modifications to the original inscriptions during the restoration campaigns. Secondly, the presence of the facsimiles highlights how BTDE’s editor considered the embroidery, in its double nature of image and texts, as a precious source to reconstruct the history of culture and of the reception of this artwork.2 6If this structure hence proves BTDE’s kinship with previous printed editions, other features show an influence of the digital scholarly tendencies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. As shown by Mancinelli and Pierazzo (2021, 38), one of these aspects is the implementation of hypertext: BTDE “uses the computer to transcend the linear, bounded and fixed qualities of the traditional written text” (Landow and Delany 1991, 227). In this way, the reader experience is richer in comparison with traditional printed books, as the “BTDE enhances the ability to produce multiple versions of the Tapestry simultaneously, realized through the user’s interaction with the readings presented in the body of commentary” and the secondary material (Foys 2011, Introduction). Analysis of the Content: Between Hypertext and Hypermedia Fig. 2: Main page of BTDE. 7The user can acquire a comprehensive knowledge of the Tapestry thanks to the material provided by this edition, which analyses the inscription and the images of the manufactured object and reconstructs its historical background. Indeed, on the default “Bayeux” page, each scene can be chosen to be accompanied by a comment (inactive by default) through a “Commentary” toggle button, consisting of a detailed description of both the scene and its details and of the events’ historical background. Relevant restoration campaigns are also mentioned and the iconology of the figures in the upper and lower borders is deciphered. The late Latin inscriptions commenting on the scenes are also analysed in this section and are transcribed and translated into English above the reproduction of the embroidery, thanks to another toggle button (see Fig. 2). The selection of the available resources is hence meant to reconstruct the Zeitgeist of the artwork. This setting is also evident in the section “Background”, whose material is both hypertextual and hypermedial. Indeed, the project extends “hypertext by reintegrating our visual and auditory faculties into textual experience, linking graphic images, sound, and video to verbal signs” (Landow and Delany 1991, 231). Fig. 3: Library panel of BTDE (here, The Ship of William the Conqueror). Fig. 4: Catalogue of the available texts in the Library section of BTDE. 8Regarding background information, the “Genealogy” section, curated by Foys, reconstructs the context of the dynastic war between the Duke of Normandy and the King of England. The two branches of the family are distinguished by two different colors, and the user of the edition can point to any member of the tree to read a brief biography, supported by several scholarly references. Each source is linked to the general “Bibliography” page, consisting of a list of reference titles presented as raw text. Moreover, the historical background is based not only on modern studies but also on original sources collected in the section “Library”, either in the form of full-texts or, more often, just through the most relevant excerpts of the sources (see Fig. 3). The seventeen documents (see Fig. 4) are dated between the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century. They also allow non-specialist users to reconstruct how these events were originally perceived by contemporary historians. Indeed, the section offers a printable modern English translation that the users can select through an interactive index, which is displayed as soon as they land on this section. A similar panel provides a brief description of the visualized document (“Introduction”), a short set of notes, which can be directly reached with the hyperlinks in the main text (“Notes”), and a list of the bibliographical references. Fig. 5: “King’s Edward Seal”, split screen view. 9This interactive paradigm and interface characterise other sections, like “Museum”, conceived to describe the material culture connected to the embroidery. Each element is displayed on the right and commented on the left. Different modalities of visualization are proposed, like “full screen” or “split screen”, allowing to compare the analysed virtual items and a specific element of the Tapestry (see Fig. 5). This tool is also relevant from an art-historical point of view as it allows readers to identify motifs and iconographic sources (seals, illuminated manuscripts, architectures, etc.) for the embroidery (see also section 4.2). The attempt to reconstruct not only the military history but also the eleventh-century way of life is addressed as well by the “Glossary”, describing the events, the people, and the places presented by the Tapestry. It contains an interesting excursus on social and cultural aspects identifiable in the embroidery, which are enhanced with hyperlinks to other relevant contents available in BTDE. Fig. 6: Visualization of the SWF files of the page “Click map”. Fig. 7: Visualization of the SWF files of the page “Battle camp”. 10In the Glossary, the references to relevant places are intimately linked to the “Map” section (unfortunately, this section cannot be properly viewed anymore), storing information and animations concerning the battlefield of Hastings and the main places mentioned by the Tapestry. Presumably, this section should have allowed us to dive into an immersive multisensorial experience. Unfortunately, this functionality cannot be enjoyed completely or even at all in specific browsers. Indeed, this SDE, which was originally published in CD-ROMs, suffers the obsolescence of different technical infrastructures: for example, the panels of “Click map” (Fig. 6) or “Battle map” (Fig. 7) cannot be visualized correctly, as uploaded as a Shockwave Flash directly embedded in the HTML code (see Code 1).3 Code Example 1: Embedding of maps in the HTML code. Aims and Methods of the Edition 11Although the edition displays the content in an intuitive structure without omitting relevant material, the methodology, especially concerning textual scholarship, is less covered. This inaccuracy can be seen already in the lack of a proper philological statement. The sole section which may provide useful food for thought in this direction is the “Introduction”. Here, after a short bibliographical reconstruction of the history of the Tapestry, the aims of the project are stated. BTDE is not conceived as a summa of the previous studies on the embroidery. Rather, the editors identify the keywords hypertext and hypermedia as the focal point of the publication, which provides an enhanced reading experience of the edited artefact. 12Therefore, the contribution of these two core concepts to the field of digital scholarly editing can be interpreted as the main ambitious research question of the project, which is addressed to both nonspecialist readers and scholars. Yet, at a closer look, specific goals can be recognized. In particular, the richness and the quality of the “Background” resources show how Foys is interested in the “history of the culture” (Pasquali 2020, 26) rather than in a sole textual analysis. The hypertextual structure is the framework where the editor sews together all the different cultural instances provided by the SDE: the embroidery is here interpreted as a potential indirect fresco of the way of life along the Channel in the eleventh century. “A hypermedia edition” – explains Foys (2011, Introduction) – “also recaptures, if only by analogy, a sense that the Tapestry itself was a multimedia document in which meaning was found through a shifting collusion of space, location, image, text, border, and perhaps even sound”. 13In this direction, the adopted methodological approach might be understood as a reader-oriented critical sensitiveness. Of course, this has a great impact on defining the ‘implicit reader’ of the SDE. The project refuses a self-definition: its title mentions the edited document and the publication medium (digital). Nonetheless, an ideal reader can be modelled starting from the available material. Although the scholarly rigour can be identified by the massive, high-quality, and well-documented resources, the publication is thought not only for an academic audience but is also conceived with an educational purpose as it allows the user to experience the Tapestry as ‘an eleventh-century viewer’. 14Given the importance of the photographic facsimile, BTDE can be considered as a documentary edition. Indeed, the project is presented as “the recording of as many features of the original document as are considered meaningful by the editors, displayed in all the ways the editors consider useful for the readers, including all the tools necessary to achieve such a purpose” (Pierazzo 2011, 475). Yet, the double nature of the embroidery of text and image is unevenly reproduced. Indeed, the iconographic and material aspects are thoroughly scrutinized throughout the edition, while the accurate rendering of the textual inscriptions is not prioritized as the editor’s mission sometimes appears more educational than philological. For example, the default visualization of the edition displays the text in a modern English translation rather than in Latin. This subordination reflects a specific feature of the Tapestry, where the “text constitutes a reduced chronicle of marginal, but not insignificant, importance, apparently subordinated visually and functionally to the larger figural imagery” (Brilliant 1991, 107). 15Consequently, the general analysis of the inscriptions is limited to a section of the “Glossary”, besides other ‘details’ such as hairstyles, costumes, or vegetation. Here, Foys performs a palaeographical analysis of the inscriptions, stating that the letters are “drawn from a mixture of both epigraphic and manuscript models”, of capital and semi-uncial characters. Foys’ chosen solution is here a semi-diplomatic transcription, but the lack of a philological statement causes some inaccuracies, as shown in the Appendix. 16Lastly, the extensive commentary on the main page, especially in the sections “Restoration” and “Inscriptions”, is intended as an apparatus where the original Tapestry is compared with the facsimiles to identify variants. After a thorough bibliographical analysis, these variants are then catalogued either as innovations of the descripti or as possible modifications to the antigraph during restoration campaigns. These sections also contain palaeographic notes on textual information, as well as references to relevant traits to define the language variety from a diachronic and diatopic perspective. However, as shown, this plethora of resources is not considered the major priority by the scholar. 17This minor attention paid to the inscriptions is evident also in their rendering in the digital medium. As a matter of fact, they are encoded as plain HTML paragraphs. The documentation of the edition does not provide information in this regard: the “Introduction” section does not refer to a computer-driven management of the text nor provide information about the structure of the database. More insight on the rendering of the textual context and the structure of the database can be instead retrieved in a presentation of BTDE – in its first CD-ROM edition – by Foys in the journal Documentary Editing (Foys 2001). However, also this description is not detailed and connects the management of textual data with the “Search” functionality, which is discussed later in this review in section 4.2: “Each textual lexias in the program is stored as an external HTML file; these files in turn are compiled into a database file which may be searched through standard Boolean operands” (Foys 2001, 39). Also in this latter contribution, no other piece of information about the architecture of the database is provided. 18This last article therefore confirms that inscriptions are rendered as tags, which have been manually compiled without further annotation, and not as a text firstly marked up following the TEI Guidelines and later converted into an HTML document with an XSLT script. This approach fails to highlight those loci of the Tapestry that could pave the way to philological and linguistic analyses of the text. However, this can be justified by the technological possibilities available at the beginning of the Nineties. As said, the development of the original BTDE CD-ROM version lasted almost a decade, from 1994 to 2003: TEI P3 was not even released until 1994, and there was then minimal (if any) support for the intensive kind of graphic display and navigation that the BTDE required. TEI was also still based in SGML, not XML at that time. The shift to XML did not happen until TEI P4 in 2002 – again, then, while support for graphic display was developing, TEI was still not designed to easily accommodate intensive graphic display and on-they-fly assemblages of images into a continuous display. At that time (2002), it would have made little sense to (re)program the edition in TEI – and also would have required an incredible amount of coding labor, even if some of the edition’s functionality could have been replicated, which at the time appeared difficult at best, and doubtful at worst.(Foys 2023) Publication and Presentation Structure of the Website and Organization of the Resources Fig. 8: Structure and organization of the different sections of BTDE. Personal elaboration. 19Being published at the beginning of the new millennium, BTDE was originally distributed on CD-ROMs, whose content was later transferred to an open website (see section 4.2). The current interface is based on simple UI elements such as buttons and dropdowns: as better described in the following paragraphs, this makes the edition accessible also for non-experts, since the user can easily identify the requested resource. Despite the lack of a single complete index, the architecture of the website can, in fact, be easily grasped without looking at the user guidelines of the “Help” page (see Fig. 8). The user reaches, by default, the visualization of the first panel. Thanks to a series of buttons, it is possible to read the commentary, scroll along the scenes and panels, hide the scene and change the language of the transcription (Latin or English). From this main page the user can access different resources. The menu “Versions” allows you to see and compare the four embroideries (the original and the three facsimiles). 20“Background” is undoubtedly the richer section of the website, as it contains all the additional multimedia and interactive resources (see section 2.1). It is also responsible for granting the scholarly quality of the edition, as its subsection “Introduction” offers a complete bibliographical excursus on the most interesting aspects of Tapestry and its facsimile, which are also mentioned in the “Bibliography” section. This richness of content also characterizes peritextual information. This can be stated by analysing “Tools”, which includes sections concerning credits, search (see section 4.2), and support. In particular, the first one has an entire paragraph devoted to the descriptions of the credits and permissions of the project. Most of the resources are under Foys’ copyright, and the list of credits toward external scholars or institutions is reported in detail. The user can read the edition according to two different licenses (individual and institutional), which is feasible for scholarly reuse of the data. Unfortunately, this page does not contain other information on the sustainment of the SDE and on further implementations. On the contrary, the page defines the project as concluded: the current version of the SDE is hence to be considered definitive. Image and Text in the WWW. Remarks on the Editorial Rationale 21Any analysis of the editorial principles beneath the BTDE must consider the historical and technological context in which it was conceived and developed. As mentioned above, the first release of the edition relied on CD-ROMs. It was later converted to an online Shockwave display by the publisher, without any further contribution by the editor (Foys 2023).4 Consequently, the current website relies heavily (if not even entirely) on the first version. The project, which was published in 2003, had indeed to deal with the difficulties of the challenges of combining textual resources with a consistent number of images of these supports (see section 3). Moreover, financial difficulties were at stake as it was only partially funded by different scholarly institutions, and an independent publishing house, “Scholarly Digital Editions”, was responsible for the publication of the results. Fig. 9: Sold copies of the publications of “Scholarly Digital Editions”. Personal elaboration after Robinson (2013). 22All these constraints are described in an article written by the co-founder of this commercial activity, Peter Robinson (2013). This short historical excursus is interesting as it first describes how CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web gave a consistent impulse to the publication of scholarly digital editions. Later, Robinson offers a reconstruction of the editorial context at the dawn of the new millennium, supported by a brief report of the activity of his commercial activity. “Scholarly Digital Editions”, founded in 2000 by Peter Robinson and Barbara Bordalejo, was indeed one of the first private and independent publishing houses trying to cover a consistent hole in this niche of the editorial market. During its activity, it published ten different editions. However, from a mere commercial and economic point of view, this experiment was a failure, also owing to an unfair concurrence with university-affiliated publishing houses. “We lost money on these publications”, admits the co-founder (Robinson 2013, 90). On the other hand, its job was essential to disseminate and support crucial projects involved in digital scholarly editing, such as the pivotal SDE by Prue Shaw on Dante’s Commedia. In this context, BTDE is by far one of the most successful experiments of this enterprise, as it is the best-seller among all the other editions in the entire catalogue (see Fig. 9).5 “The Bayeux Tapestry” – states Robinson (2013, 91) – “may claim to have sold more copies than any comparable scholarly digital edition ever”. In my opinion, the editorial success (as shown in Fig. 9, 2,500 copies were sold) and the acknowledgment of several awards (Choice Outstanding Title award; 2005 prize of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists for the best new edition in any medium) is to be justified with BTDE’s pioneering strategies of sewing together image and texts in the digital environment. For instance, the edition seems to anticipate the potentialities of the techniques for image interoperability (such as IIIF, which would be developed only in 2011). A rapid inspection of the source code reveals that the facsimile of the edition is uploaded through an OpenSeadragon API. This solution allows us to visualize and zoom in on minor details of the embroidery without a loss of quality. This performance would not have been possible with the upload of a mere .jpeg file, which, on the contrary, still characterizes several SDEs published in the first decade of the new millennium. Relying on this JavaScript structure, the user can explore the content in an interactive and intuitive platform. Following the category of “paradigmatic regression” developed by van Zundert (2016), it would not be incorrect to claim that reading the Tapestry in BTDE might resemble viewing a subtitled movie. 23The attention to images and additional content, as well as the interactive features granted by the JavaScript structure, makes the BTDE a crucial point in the digital philological praxis. The hypermedial and interactive paradigm, indeed, exceeds the limit of a simple scholarly restitution of the text. Rather, it tries to gaze at the Tapestry as a unity of image and text developed in a specific social and political context. In this perspective, it would not be exaggerated to look at the edition as a hybrid experiment between ecdotic and museum practice (Foys himself names a section of the website as “Museum”). Indeed, the editor enhanced the philological restitution of the text with a very common model of a virtual museum, defined by Caraceni (2014),6 whose collection can be freely browsed within a closed environment. This innovative solution valorises both the tangible and intangible heritage of the cultural context depicted by the embroidery. The possibility to dynamically explore these resources thanks to this interactive paradigm is a considerable step towards democratizing knowledge: in fact, “the editor [manages to reveal] relationships to the reader: not only relationships among the various texts that belong to the work, but also those between them and other texts [and objects – I would add] related to the work” (Rasmussen 2016, 129). 24In this project, hyperlinks are implemented as an “organizing principle”, which results in the creation of a deeply intertwined set of relations. This feature allows for switching from the commentary of the main scenes to the additional sections available in the background materials. Nonetheless, the paradigm followed by the edition is still linked to the methodologies of the Web 1.0 (the Semantic Web was introduced in 2006, i.e., almost four years later than the first edition of BTDE). As a matter of fact, the metadata of the objects presented in the “Background” material is reduced to a simple description of the source and the hosting institution in plain text. Consequently, the sole citation guideline available refers to the SDE as a whole and not to its single parts. 25Concerning the publication of the project, the obsolescence of the use of web technologies is an obstacle to the sustainability of the project. Since the last version (no update is scheduled) dates to 2011, the website reflects old visual and functionality standards, starting from the implemented fonts and the sole export format available (a printable PDF available through the printer icon). However, these features do not affect the core aspects of the user experience: the combination of colours is pleasant to the eye, and in textual sections, every class of hyperlinks is rendered with a specific colour (see also Foys 2001). This colour-coded categorisation witnesses the kinship of BTDE interface with the web presentation of other early scholarly digital humanities. For instance, choosing as a case study the redesign of the Women Writers Project Online by Brown University from 1999 to 2006, Warwick underlines how this “innovative use of colour” can be considered one of the main peculiarities of these projects (Warwick 2020). She comments that “such a use of colour is evidently intended to help users unfamiliar with webpages to distinguish between different parts of the collection” (Warwick 2020, 7), which is coherent with “reader-oriented sensitiveness” of BTDE. 26However, the out-of-date version available online still has a major hindrance to usability, as seen in the analysis of the “Map” section. In addition, the use of HTTP protocol instead of HTTPS can lead to different behaviours across different browsers (Siewert et al. 2022) and even to possible issues in content display (see a more detailed overview on the topic in Paracha et al. 2020). As an example, at the time of writing this review, the function “Search” does not run in all browsers.7 This page allows users to carry out simple boolean queries: they can be applied to the entirety of the edition or to a specific subsection (including the scene commentary but not the transcription), and they may be combined through logical operators. Given its extremely streamlined structure, the search engine can be used regardless of the previous knowledge of the user, even though no further support (e.g. auto-suggestion) is provided. Lastly, although the license allows the reuse of data, the extraction, exportation, and re-implementation of the resources of this edition, several factors make it difficult to extract all the data in a reusable and machine-readable format: the absence of a consistent data model and of annotated texts, and the possibility of choosing PDF as the sole export format. Conclusion 27Undoubtedly, BTDE is a “critical representation of a historic document”. In this sense, it perfectly fits the definition of SDE proposed by Patrick Sahle, who defines Foys’ project as a “good example” of the implementation of editorial methodology to a cultural artefact that is not exclusively a text carrier (Sahle 2016, 2). Indeed, the edition completely fulfils its aim of implementing digital potentialities to recreate a new immersive reading experience of the Tapestry: it is not just a digitized version as, if printed, the complex hyperlink and interactive would fade. The use of hypermedia as an epistemological basis for the structure of the SDE allows for easily identifying in this network-shaped architecture the real digital paradigm of the edition. Through the systematic use of hyperlinks, the project succeeds, in fact, in reproducing the cognitive habits of the reader, offering a multi-layer interpretation of the Tapestry. 28The comparison with other scholarly digital editions provides useful coordinates to contextualize the project in the ever-evolving field of digital scholarly editing. The high quality and the richness of the available material are pioneering in the field (especially at the first release date), but the treatment of textual data is unorthodox. The philological statement is not clear: for instance, although it states the epistemological principle, it overlooks the chosen approach for text transcription. This approach reports the inscription in a semi-diplomatic transcription, yet often causing inconsistencies and, more seldom, mistakes (see the appendix). 29In lieu of conclusion, BTDE is an interesting project from different perspectives, and its quality is certified by general scholarly rigour. Yet, a decade after the last modification, it would need a new, updated release. The possible modification may be delivered in three main directions. Firstly, the software should be updated with current technologies: interesting additional resources (e.g., “Map”) are no longer available due to the obsolescence of the implemented digital infrastructure, which seriously hinders the usability of the edition. Moreover, new scholarly tools for the analysis of textual data and iconographic details (in particular, borders) should be provided. 30As mentioned, XML/TEI markup would surely be a key solution: it would allow the creation of indexes and the manipulation of text strings and, lastly, would pave the way to the application of NLP technologies, for example, for more specific queries for linguistic patterns. In addition, the editor deciphers the complex iconology of the borders in the commentaries, but these aspects are difficult to isolate on a large scale. Annotation techniques and ad hoc search engines would allow for performing systematic and contrastive iconographic analysis. 31Thirdly, a new edition of the BTDE should update the web infrastructure to be compliant with the requisites of the Semantic Web. The rich interconnection between the resources would surely be valorized by the implementation of a Semantic Digital Edition, which fosters “a view of the text ‘from above’, not as a sequence of data but as a network of relationships” (Tomasi, Giovannetti and Daquino 2019, 51).8 In order to achieve this goal, the TEI markup should be enhanced with a serialization as Linked Open Data, which is today made possible in the Text Encoding Initiative.9 These changes would considerably improve the usability of the edition and would create a digital object compatible with the most recent framework for data reusability (such as the FAIR principles). 32Regardless of these suggestions, BTDE can be considered a milestone project in the field of SDE for its time. Foys’ intuition of identifying hypermediality as the paradigm for translating a multimedial artefact into an easily surfable digital environment is innovative and ambitious. Indeed, it is also addressed to a non-specialized audience and, lastly, advances new frontiers of the field of digital scholarly editing, highlighting the potentialities of those editorial practices when applied at the intersection of art history and literary studies. Appendix. Features of Inscriptions and Transcription Habits: a Minimum Sample The editor divides the words, which are embroidered in scriptio continua (Fig. 10), without reflecting the layout of the Tapestry (Fig. 11), as the line break is usually marked just by a white space (Fig. 12). Moreover, the polychrome of the inscription is not rendered (Fig. 13). On the contrary, the editor keeps the alternate between capital and semi-uncial characters (Fig. 14 and 15). Yet, some inconsistencies can be found (see the different rendering of WIDONIS in Fig. 11, with an apparently lowercase dental, and WIDO, Fig. 16). The arcigrapheme <V> is distinguished between [u] (Fig. 17) and [v] (Fig. 18), while the occurrences of <VV>, probably correspondent to [gw], are rendered as <W>, even though the transcription is not always consistent (Fig. 16, 17, 18). The editor does not distinguish legaturae (Fig. 19, 20, 21) and tituli (Fig. 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26), either: they are rendered within the brackets, but in 8b, the entire word is rewritten. Short-hand symbols (e.g., the Tironian note in Fig. 27) are solved similarly. Moreover, conjectures are identified by “(…?)” and square brackets (Fig. 28), while emendations are signalled similarly to tituli. In addition, some of these corrections are not always necessary. The Latin of the Tapestry does not coincide with the Classical variety.10 This can be evident just from a lexical point of view (caballi instead of equi, parabolant instead of loquntur): the transcription itself does not correct simplified diphthongs (prelium, Fig. 29), but sometimes implements morphosyntactic corrections. For instance, the suffix of the accusative is added (Fig. 30), or active verbs are reconducted to the classical deponent form (Fig. 31). Tab. 1: Sample of inscriptions and transcription habits Case Facsimile Transcription Panel11 1. Fig. 10: ET SUI MILITES: EQUITANT ET SUI MILITES: EQUITANT 3 2. Fig. 11: ET VELIS: VENTO: PLENIS VE==NIT: IN TERRA: WIDONIS COMITIS ET VELIS: VENTO: PLENIS VE==NIT: IN TERRA: WIDONIS COMITIS 9 3. Fig. 12: NUNTIUS : AD WIL GELMUM DUCEM NUNTIUS : AD WIL GELMUM DUCEM 27 4. Fig. 13: ET hIC EPISCOPUS : CIBU(M) : ET : POTU(M) BENEDICIT ET hIC EPISCOPUS : CIBU(M) : ET : POTU(M) BENEDICIT 111 5a. Fig. 14: hAROLDUm hAROLDUm 29 5b. Fig. 15: AD PeVeNeSÆ :- AD PeVeNeSÆ :- 97 6a. Fig. 16: WIDO: WIDO: 14 6b. Fig. 17: VVILLeLM VVILLeLM 126 6c. Fig. 18: WILLELMI WILLELMI 78 7a. Fig. 19: PUGNANT PUGNANT 161 7b. Fig. 20: AECLLESIA AECLLESIA 4 7c. Fig. 21: MINISTRAVeRUN(T) MINISTRAVeRUN(T) 110 8a. Fig. 22: HAROLDU(m) HAROLDU(m) 14 8b. Fig. 23: AD WIDO NE (Widonem) AD WIDO NE (Widonem) 24 8c. Fig. 24: ECClESIAM : S(AN)C(T)I PETRI AP(OSTO)LI ECClESIAM : S(AN)C(T)I PETRI AP(OSTO)LI 67 8d. Fig. 25: ODO EP(iscopu)S : ODO EP(iscopu)S : 158 8e. Fig. 26: ALLOQUIT(UR) : ALLOQUIT(UR) : 70 9. Fig. 27: 7 (et) WIDO: 7 (et) WIDO: 19 10. Fig. 28: E . . . . . (T?)IUS [EUSTATIUS] E . . . . . (T?)IUS [EUSTATIUS] 161 11a. Fig. 29: AD PreLIUM : AD PreLIUM : 125 11b. Fig. 30: CONTRA : hAROLDUM . REGe(M) CONTRA : hAROLDUM . REGe(M) 125 11c. Fig. 31: ISTI MIRANT(UR) ISTI MIRANT(UR) 73 Notes [1] Unfortunately, not all these contacts are updated. To contact the main editor, Prof. Foys, another institutional mail (affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison) has been used by the author of this review. [2] Pasquali (2020, 26) mentions the role of codices descripti, particularly in the history of culture. The facsimiles were created both to have a reliable reproduction in case of damage to the original embroidery and to allow diffusion of the French artwork in England. They are interesting sources for understanding the reception of the Tapestry, similar to engravings for artistic masterpieces. [3] The format was declared obsolete at the end of 2020, but it can still be opened with external software (e.g., Ruffle). [4] The edition should have allowed switching between the CD-ROM and the web interface. Nonetheless, the available link does not work correctly, and a “404 error” page is displayed. [5] The catalogue of the enterprise from its founding to 2013 contains ten titles (in brackets, the identifier used in Fig. 9 above is given). Estelle Stubbs (ed.), The Hengwrt Chaucer Digital Facsimile, 2000 (A); Martin Foys (ed.), The Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition, 2002 (B); Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan (ed.), The Hengwrt Chaucer Standard Edition, 2003 (C); Barbara Bordalejo (ed.), Caxton’s Canterbury Tales: The British Library Copies, 2003 (D); Elena Pierazzo (ed.), The Miller’s Tale on CD-ROM, 2004 (E); Christopher Given-Wilson et al (eds.), The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 2005 (F); Paul Thomas (ed.), The Nun’s Priest’s Tale on CD-ROM, 2006 (G); Prue Shaw (ed.), Dante: Monarchia, 2007 (H); Jos Weitenberg (ed.), Leiden Armenian Lexical Textbase, 2008 (I); Daniel W. Mosser (ed.), A Digital Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the Canterbury Tales, 2010 (J); Prue Shaw (ed.), Dante Alighieri: Commedia, 2010 (K). [6] The virtual museum category that seems to best describe this model is the category A. A more detailed definition of this aspect is available in Caraceni (2014, 183). [7] Suggested browser: Mozilla Firefox. [8] Personal translation. Orginal Italian version: “una visione del testo ‘dall’alto’, non come sequenza di dati ma come rete di relazioni”. [9] For example, the <xenoData> section tag allows to express metadata from other schemes. Regarding this topic, see the reference for this element in the TEI P5 guidelines, as well as the proceedings of the 2013 TEI Conference. [10] A precise phenomenology of Late Antiquity Latin is provided by Clackson and Horrocks (2007). [11] It is possible to directly reach the discussed locus both by clicking on the embedded hyperlink in the case number (first column) or by manually typing the corresponding panel number (third column) in the slider in upper right corner of BTDE main section. References Brilliant, Richard. 1991. “The Bayeux Tapestry: a stripped narrative for their eyes and ears.” Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry 7:2: 98–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.1991.10435818. Caraceni, Simona. 2014. Designing a taxonomy of virtual museums for the use of AVICOM professionals. PhD Thesis, Plymouth University. Ciula, Arianna, and Fabio Ciotti, eds. 2014. “Selected Papers from the 2013 TEI Conference”, Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative 8. https://doi.org/10.4000/jtei.1025. Clackson, James, and Geoffrey Horrocks. 2007. “Latin in Late Antiquity and Beyond.” In The Blackwell History of the Latin Language, 265–304. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Foys, Martin K. 2001. “Hypertextile Scholarship: Digitally Editing the Bayeux Tapestry.” Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011) 23 (2): 34–43. https://web.archive.org/web/20250222175117/https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1437&context=docedit. Foys, Martin K., ed. 2011. Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition (revised edition). Scholarly Digital Editions. Accessed January 27, 2024. http://www.sd-editions.com/bayeux/online/index.html#. Foys, Martin K., answer to an email by Manuele Veggi. 2023. Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition: Request of Information (February 5). Gameson, Richard. 1997. The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry. Woodbridge: The Boydel Press. Landow, George, and Paul Delany. 1991. “Hypertext, hypermedia and literary studies: the state of the art.” In Hypermedia and Literary Studies, edited by Paul Delany and George P. Landow. Cambridge: MIT Press. Mancinelli, Tiziana, and Elena Pierazzo. 2021. Che cos’è un’edizione critica digitale. Roma: Carocci editore. Paracha, Muhammad Talha, Balakrishnan Chandrasekaran, David Choffnes, and Dave Levin. 2020. “A Deeper Look at Web Content Availability and Consistency over HTTP/S.” Traffic Monitoring and Analysis. https://web.archive.org/web/20250223095517/https://www.cs.umd.edu/~dml/papers/https_tma20.pdf. Pasquali, Giorgio. 2020. Storia della tradizione e critica del testo. Firenze: Le Lettere. Pierazzo, Elena. 2011. “A rationale of digital documentary editions.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 26 (4): 463–477. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqr033. Pierazzo, Elena. 2017. “Facsimile and Document-Centric Editing.” In Creating a Digital Scholarly Edition with the Text Encoding Initiative. A Textbook for Digital Humanists, edited by Marjorie Burghart. DEMM. https://web.archive.org/web/20250223102119/https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/project-result-content/cfb03c8e-6765-477e-aa4d-e2b162f57068/IO2_Creating%20a%20digital%20edition%20with%20the%20TEI.pdf. Rasmussen, Krista Stinne Greve. 2016. “Reading or Using a Digital Edition? Reader Roles in Scholarly Editions.” In Digital Scholarly Editing. Theories and Practices, edited by Matthew J. Driscoll and Elena Pierazzo, 119–136. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0095.07. Robinson, Peter. 2013. “The History of Scholarly Digital Editions, Plc.” Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada 51 (1): 83–104. https://doi.org/10.33137/pbsc.v51i1.20763. Sahle, Patrick. 2016. “What is a Scholarly Digital Edition?” In Digital Scholarly Editing. Theories and Practices, edited by Matthew J. Driscoll and Elena Pierazzo, 19–40. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0095.02. Siewert, Hendrik, Martin Kretschmer, Marcus Niemietz, and Juraj Somorovsky. 2022. “On the security of parsing security-relevant HTTP headers in modern browsers.” In 2022 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops (SPW), San Francisco, CA, USA, 2022, 342–352. https://doi.org/10.1109/spw54247.2022.9833880. Spear, David. 1992. “Recent Scholarship on the Bayeux Tapestry: David M. Wilson, «The Bayeux Tapestry; David J. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry»; N. P. Brooks and H. E. Walker, «The Authority and Interpretation of the Bayeux Tapestry»; Shirley Ann Brown, «The Bayeux Tapestry : History and Bibliography».” Annales de Normandie 42 (2): 221–226. Tomasi, Francesca, Francesca Giovannetti, and Marilena Daquino. 2019. “Linked Data per le edizioni scientifiche digitali. Il workflow di pubblicazione dell’edizione semantica del quaderno di appunti di Paolo Bufalini.” Umanistica Digitale 7. http://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9091. UNESCO. 2006. “Bayeux Tapestry.” Memory of the World. https://web.archive.org/web/20240102143806/https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/bayeux-tapestry. van Zundert, Joris. 2016. “The Case of the Bold Button: Social Shaping of Technology and the Digital Scholarly Edition.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 31 (4): 898–910. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqw012. Warwick, Claire. 2020. “Interfaces, ephemera, and identity: A study of the historical presentation of digital humanities resources.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 35 (4): 944–971. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqz081. Figures Fig. 1: A traditional edition of the Bayeux Tapestry (here, Gameson 1997). To render the details, the embroidery is segmented into different plates. Fig. 2: Main page of BTDE. Fig. 3: Library panel of BTDE (here, The Ship of William the Conqueror). Fig. 4: Catalogue of the available texts in the Library section of BTDE. Fig. 5: “King’s Edward Seal”, split screen view. Fig. 6: Visualization of the SWF files of the page “Click map”. Fig. 7: Visualization of the SWF files of the page “Battle camp”. Fig. 8: Structure and organization of the different sections of BTDE. Personal elaboration. Fig. 9: Sold copies of the publications of ‘Scholarly Digital Editions’. Personal elaboration after Robinson (2013). Fig. 10: ET SUI MILITES: EQUITANT Fig. 11: ET VELIS: VENTO: PLENIS VE==NIT: IN TERRA: WIDONIS COMITIS Fig. 12: NUNTIUS : AD WIL GELMUM DUCEM Fig. 13: ET hIC EPISCOPUS : CIBU(M) : ET : POTU(M) BENEDICIT Fig. 14: hAROLDUm Fig. 15: AD PeVeNeSÆ :- Fig. 16: WIDO: Fig. 17: VVILLeLM Fig. 18: WILLELMI Fig. 19: PUGNANT Fig. 20: AECLLESIA Fig. 21: MINISTRAVeRUN(T) Fig. 22: HAROLDU(m) Fig. 23: AD WIDO NE (Widonem) Fig. 24: ECClESIAM : S(AN)C(T)I PETRI AP(OSTO)LI Fig. 25: ODO EP(iscopu)S : Fig. 26: ALLOQUIT(UR) : Fig. 27: 7 (et) WIDO: Fig. 28: E . . . . . (T?)IUS [EUSTATIUS] Fig. 29: AD PreLIUM : Fig. 30: CONTRA : hAROLDUM . REGe(M) Fig. 31: ISTI MIRANT(UR)