RIDE https://ride.i-d-e.de A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources 2023-12-29T21:51:00Z hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/bufalini/ 2023-12-29T21:49:10Z Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook Read More »

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Paolo Bufalini, Appunti (1981-1991) [Edizione scientifica digitale semantica], Daquino, Marilena, Martina Dello Buono, Francesca Giovannetti, and Francesca Tomasi (ed.), 2020. https://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6415 (Last Accessed: 13.01.2022). Reviewed by orcid-icon Luisa Ammirati (Università di Bologna), luisa.ammirati@studio.unibo.it. ||

Abstract:

Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook (from here on PBN) is a critical edition of the personal notebook that the Italian politician and intellectual Paolo Bufalini held from 1981 to 1991. The edition offers the opportunity to plunge into the flow of thoughts of a man of the twentieth century who reflects on philosophy, poetry, and politics. The methodical goal of this edition, which is implemented with XML/TEI and RDF graphs, is to create an encoding system using Semantic Web technologies, able to emphasize the complex network of quotations and annotations that fills the pages. The digital edition aims to follow a data-centric paradigm. In this light, PBN is connected to authority files and external knowledge bases, such as DBpedia, VIAF, and WorldCat, to harness the power of the Linked Open Data universe. This review provides the reader with an overview of Paolo Bufalini’s work and the main features of the semantic critical edition. Finally, PBN can be evaluated as a decent edition, which responds to certain requirements of a digital edition, but not to all, and it still lends itself to improvements and new developments.

Introduction to the author

1Paolo Bufalini (Rome, 9 September 1915 – Rome, 19 December 2001) was an Italian communist partisan, an excellent critical observer of history, and a master of alliance politics. Assigned to international relations, he played the role of a mediator between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Vatican for many years. He was a senator from 1963 to 1992. Bufalini was a Latinist and a translator of Horace. He was a humanist before being a politician. His readings and his dedication to literature and philosophy, as the content of the notebook shows, saved him from an all-encompassing political involvement. The former president of Italy Giorgio Napolitano, commemorating Bufalini, his friend and party colleague, remembers him as among “le migliori energie delle generazioni dell’antifascismo, della Guerra e della Resistenza”1 (Matteoli 2002, 25). Although he is considered one of the most influential personalities in Italian politics of the last century, there is no significant documentary footage about him. Aside from the monograph curated by Giovanni Matteoli in 2002 and published by Rubbettino Editore (see Citti 2008), the PBN appears currently the widest editorial project focused on the red cardinal, as he was nicknamed.

Introduction to the digital edition

2The digital edition of Quaderno di appunti di Paolo Bufalini (1981-1991), Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook (1981-1991) in English, is available at https://projects.dharc.unibo.it/bufalini-notebook/. It is identified by ISBN:9788854970793 and DOI: 10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6415. The initial project was designed by Francesca Tomasi, Marilena Daquino, and Francesca Giovannetti in the academic environment of the Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna. For the last version, the team has won a new member, Martina Dello Buono. Francesca Tomasi2 is an associate professor in Archival and Library Science at the University of Bologna and Director of the International Second Cycle in Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge (DHDK). She is the supervisor of PBN. Marilena Daquino3, a research assistant at the Alma Mater, has been a specialist in metadata at the Multimedia Centre at the University of Bologna. In this project, she covered the role of RDF modeling and development expert. The third curator of the project is Francesca Giovannetti4, doctoral student and teaching tutor at the Department of Classical and Italian Philology of the University of Bologna (FICLIT), who has made Paolo Bufalini’s notebook her study example for both bachelor (Giovannetti 2013) and master (Giovannetti 2015) theses in digital humanities. Giovannetti worked on the XML/TEI modeling and markup. Martina Dello Buono5 is a PhD student in DHDK at Alma Mater Studiorum, and she is currently involved in the Śivadharma project in collaboration with L’Orientale University as a web designer and developer expert in Digital Humanities. Her contribution to PBN concerns web design and application6.

3After Bufalini’s death, his sons donated his personal notebook (kept from 1981 to 1991) to FICLIT, where some scholars brought the complex textual dynamics that animated the paper to light (see Citti 2008, 2). This philological work has been conveyed to the digital edition in question, first published in 2019, updated in April 2020, and then again in January 2021 (current version). Thus, the present review is based on this latter version of PBN, but the first draft had as a reference the edition of April 2020. That explains why, in the following pages, you will run into some screenshots and images that I took from the previous version and that are not retrievable anymore but useful to enhance the improvements achieved by the current edition. Today, the original manuscript is treasured in Ezio Raimondi Library in Bologna.

4During the decade 1981–1991 (Citti 2008, 2), Paolo Bufalini kept a private journal, which is the expression of an experienced man’s thoughts with a sophisticated intellectual tension, who had never stopped studying and expanding his knowledge. The Latin classics (including Catullus, Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, etc.), the major figures of the Italian literature (Dante, Manzoni, Carducci, Croce, etc.), and the protagonists of foreign cultures (Flaubert, Shakespeare, Mann, Tolstoy, etc.) came together on the same sheet of paper, inside a unique stream of thought. The notebook contains notes in Italian, Latin, and English, with the margins and footer filled with annotations. As a result, following the author’s thought process can be difficult at times.

5Cardinal Silvestrini (1923–2019), who met Bufalini for the revision of the Concordat (1984), remembers Bufalini and his notebook with these words:

C’è un quadernetto di scritti di sua mano, appunti del decennio ’81-’91 che la figlia Jolanda mi ha gentilmente mostrato. È una specie di “calepino” morale, in cui egli raccoglie i pensieri di autori e pensieri suoi, scritti negli intervalli più diversi, durante una pausa di riunioni e assemblee, o durante un viaggio, per esempio a Cuba, momenti estravaganti di una riflessione in cui l’animo si rifugiava e si placava.7 (Matteoli 2002, 35)

6The text shows the personal interest of Bufalini in themes of an existential nature, such as death and time, but also in the Christian view of life, dealing with topics like pain and faith. At the same time, there are lots of passages that show Bufalini’s involvement in politics: democracy, mafia, social commitment, and other political themes (Citti 2008, 66).

General parameters of the edition

7The website gives key information to frame the context and workflow of this work. This is surely the best improvement compared to the version of 2020, in which lots of data were missing, like the mention of the work done by the Institute La Permanenza del Classico (involved in the first design of the edition) or info about the editors. As mentioned before in the Introduction, the older version is not accessible anymore, but I started reviewing this project when the current one was not ready yet, and I kept track of the previous edition via notes and screenshots.

8The ‘Technical specifications’ section (whose link can be found in the footer) enables the user to follow the backstage of the work step by step. He/she can grasp the meaning of the adopted methodology, the RDF dataset components, the web application development, and the possible filters for semantic queries. The choice to include on the website technical information not strictly related to the philological value of the edition, like the explanation of web application development, unveils a didactic vocation, which goes well with the academic environment where the edition is born. Although expanding beyond the humanities to include explanations about ontologies, metadata, and web technologies is commendable, the lack of information on the philological principles utilized, which deserves its own dedicated section, can be perceived as a shortcoming. While it is true that different entities (specifically, the study center La Permanenza del Classico) made the editorial decisions, it is also true that Francesca Giovannetti, one of the publishers of PBN, was involved in the project’s development from an early stage, as she confirms in the passage below.

The development of the digital edition started with the diplomatic transcription of the text, which preserved all the original characteristics of the writings, such as spelling and punctuation, deletions and additions, abbreviations and line breaks. Subsequently, the centre carried out the encoding of the text in TEI Lite P4. […] In 2013, the centre [“La Permanenza del Classico”] came to the decision of migrating from TEI Lite P4 to TEI P5 and I was charged with this task. […] With the migration from TEI Lite P4 to TEI P5 the encoding model has substantially changed: different choices were made for the representation of textual phenomena and of editorial additions. (Giovannetti 2015, 2)

9Furthermore, since PBN is the only open-access available output of the editorial and philological work done on the text by both La Permanenza del Classico and the PBN publishers, as detailed in the ‘Subject and Content’ section, it would be appropriate to provide more comprehensive information about these decisions. However, a close comparative reading between the facsimile and the transcription allows an informed user to grasp the philological decisions behind the text and its transcription because there are no cases of extreme philological complexity, no variants, for instance.

10Moreover, the financial resources available for the project are not clarified, and the timeline is undeclared. On the other hand, as mentioned in the below ‘Aim and methods’ paragraph, the goals and the embraced approach are explained. The general parameters of the edition, therefore, can be considered partially accessible to the final user: the overview of the context, the editors, the mission, and methods are accessible, and the philological work is explained in a few sentences but not accurately covered.

Subject and content

11The subject of the digital edition is the autograph manuscript of Paolo Bufalini’s notebook. The unpublished 143 bound pages and two loose sheets (corresponding to pages 144-147 in the facsimile) represent the entire research area of the project.

12The PBN does not rely on printed editions. The project Quaderni di Paolo Bufalini, curated by the Institute La Permanenza del Classico, could be considered the digital archetype of this current edition. As explained on the corresponding webpage8 and in more detail in Giovannetti (2015), the backbone of the editorial project had already been formed in 2008, when the diplomatic edition was completed, the dense network of references was revealed, and the first encoding with the XML/TEI P4 was provided. However, the beta version, which was edited by the Institute, cannot be consulted. It is not clear whether it is simply not open-source software or if it is not available since the release of the current edition. Everything we know about the previous edition’s achievements is reported in the research paper by Citti (2008), where we can also find some archive images (Citti 2008, 78).

Aims and methods

13The paper by Daquino, Giovannetti, and Tomasi (2019), added as a suggested reading at the end of the ‘Introduction’ page of PBN, helps to understand the aims of the edition better:

Molte delle ESD ad oggi disponibili online presentano una struttura documento-centrica. […] Si tratta del paradigma tipico della stampa tipografica, trasportato dall’ambiente analogico a quello digitale. L’espansione del Web of data sollecita la ridefinizione del concetto di ESD da parte della comunità accademica. L’ESD […] deve essere ripensata come insieme di entità, ovvero anche risorse identificate univocamente con URI e interconnesse attraverso l’uso di link tipizzati (le proprietà RDF), secondo un paradigma dato-centrico.9 (Daquino, Giovannetti, and Tomasi 2019, 50)

14Every working step of the project was conceived with this perspective in mind. DSEs can exchange precious knowledge thanks to shared knowledge graphs on the Semantic Web. The TEI encoding mediates between the ontologies and the source text, and as stated in the ‘XML/TEI Encoding’ section on the PBN ‘Introduction’ page: “It aims to represent the relationships between the textual fragments of the notebook (citations, comments, translations, etc.) and to link the local authority files to external datasets” (Daquino et al. 2020).

15This means that the RDF dataset is populated by the extraction of the TEI entities via XSLT, generating a Turtle file from the TEI document, or that it is created manually (Giovannetti 2015, 30-31). Furthermore, the embedded markup model of the notebook is complemented with ontologies that open the door to a ‘global data space’ in which URIs identify documents and data they contain (e.g., entities) that could be used in many different applications (Giovannetti 2015, 15). The interoperability of the edition achieved through the use of Linked Open Data (LOD) is, therefore, the main scholarly contribution.

16The curators, however, have decided to only share the output – the result of this ample reflection behind the creation of the edition – through the official site of PBN. On the ‘Home’ page you can read: “The primary aims of the edition are to identify, analyse and enhance the intratextual and extratextual relations – otherwise implicit, given the private nature of the notebook – which characterize the texts of the Appunti[…]” (Daquino et al. 2020).

17The essence of their research project is to create a bespoke application able to enhance the text. They find the answer to such information needs through the Semantic Web technologies, but the brief digression on the ‘Introduction’ page about the features and the functioning of the LOD implementation could be deepened and explained in a more complete way. The risk, otherwise, is that the user, especially if new to LOD, could lose the necessary information to enjoy the edition as a whole. According to my experience, the paper by Daquino, Giovannetti, and Tomasi (2019) fills the information gap about the strategy to implement the DSE with Semantic Web technologies, but I would like to find the explanation of this vision, promoted as the strength of the edition in the aforementioned paper, in the official webpage of PBN.

18 Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook is classified by the editors, in the Overview section of ‘Technical specifications’, as Semantic Scholarly Digital Edition (SSDE), but I do not totally agree with them: the ‘Semantic’, ‘Digital’, and ‘Editing’ parts are contemplated, but the ‘Scholarly’ only partially covered, because, although the transcript is faithful to the text, the philological principles are not stated explicitly and in detail.

User interface

19The design of the site is sober and elegant. There is no discordant note that disturbs the layout. The style adopted for the website seems to mirror the personality of Paolo Bufalini, an intellectual with a moderate temper, not ostentatious, but a man of great depth. The contents of the website are easily accessible by using the navigation bar located on the top right of the page.

Fig. 1: The navigation bar; screenshot.
Fig. 2: Detail of the facsimile; screenshot.

20 The navigation bar shows the available sections, highlighting all the required information to navigate the website: ‘Home’, ‘Introduction’, ‘Digital Edition’, as well as ‘Index of Persons’ and ‘Index of Works’. On the ‘Home’ page, the users have access to an overview of what they can find by browsing the website and to the links for directly reaching the other main areas of the project. The ‘Introduction’, instead, presents the fundamental pillars of the project. The ‘Digital edition’ is the area devoted to the visualization of Bufalini’s work, whereas the ‘Index of Persons’ and the ‘Index of Works’ are the Semantic indexes, which are deepened in the following paragraphs. The website is available in Italian and English (the language menu is circled in green in Fig. 1). However, it is worth reporting one little error, which surely does not compromise the understanding of the text, but it would be better to fix it: by accessing the ‘Digital Edition’ section, the box that appears when moving the mouse on the facsimile is only partially translated into English (detail circled in red, Fig. 2).

Fig. 3: Example of a bug that appears reducing the screen on PC; screenshot.

21 For what concerns the usability of the website, access from devices like computers and tablets is granted, but only in a full-screen modality, since the exploration of the edition by a reduced screen on a PC distorts the interface, which undergoes a loss of information and functions (see Fig. 3). The horizontal comparison between the facsimile and the transcript, for example, is totally hampered by the graphic arrangement of the ‘Transcript’ box placed vertically above the ‘Facsimile’ box. Although a medium-sized screen is generally recommended to use a DSE, and therefore, the aforementioned situation cannot be properly defined as a deficiency, making the site responsive might be a valuable idea to take into account for a possible future edition.

22There is no area dedicated to listing the bibliographic sources, just a suggested reading for a full technical description of the edition at the end of the ‘Introduction’ page. Besides, there is a SPARQL endpoint, available through the footer, where the user can enter queries and have access to data. Since there is no further documentation about how to use it, this section is reserved for those who are familiar with this semantic query language. Finally, as the editors claim in the ‘Licences’ section (accessible from the footer), the code of the application is available under a CC0 license (Daquino, Giovannetti, and Dello Bueno 2021), the dataset of the notebook is available under a CC BY 4.0 license on AMSActa (Tomasi, Daquino, and Giovannetti 2019), whereas all rights of the notebook’s images are reserved to FICLIT Digital Library.

Usability

Fig. 4: Facsimile images and annotation of previous edition; screenshot.
Fig. 5: Digital Edition window – current edition – screenshot.

23 My personal experience as a user of PBN suggests that the edition is presented as an easily usable product. The nav buttons, for instance, are easily interpretable, and the features provided correspond to the expectations of a digital edition’s user: as explained in the previous paragraph, the terminology used for buttons and hyperlinks is quite unequivocal. Clicking on the ‘Digital Edition’ button in the navigation bar, for instance, one can expect to access the facsimile images of the notebook10, and this is what happens. The user can browse through the facsimile, shown in a double-page layout. The resolution of the images (taken with an i2S CopiBook planetary scanner)11 is excellent. You can zoom in on a little frame without the quality being affected. On the facsimile, the user can discover the quotations (and their origin, even if implicit), the annotations, and some life memories caught in the calligraphy of the author. The current version (Fig. 5) is more complex and richer in filters and features than the previous one (available in 2020) (Fig. 4).

24The user can arrange the window by opening or closing the box of ‘Filters’,
‘Transcription’, and ‘Facsimile’. It is a graphical strategy that enables the user to stay focused on what he/she is interested in, keeping open the possibility to switch modality of consulting the edition. Moreover, the user can set the font, the size, and the background color of the transcription box (clicking on the T circled in orange, see Fig. 5). This page shows several useful links and information: the question mark (‘?’) on the right (circled in light blue, Fig. 5) explains all the tools available to discover the edition; the ‘Metadata’ (circled in purple, Fig. 5), instead, displays a brief table summarising the key info about the PBN; the icon of IIIF (circled in pink, Fig. 5), which stands for International Image Interoperability Framework12, is linked to the complete facsimile on the FICLIT Digital Library; on the left, the symbol of the encoding (circled in blue, Fig. 5) allows to download the XML/TEI file of the notebook.

Fig. 6: Example of “People” filter result; screenshot.

25 The ‘Filters’ tab, split into ‘People’ and ‘Works’, is a tool to search for specific contents in the transcription. The occurrences of the selected person are reported in a list of results on top, and they are highlighted in blue in the transcription of the notebook. Once a ‘People’ filter is adopted, you can also distinguish the results by the ‘Person role’ (‘Author’ or ‘Mentioned person’), as Fig. 6 shows.

26Concerning the text fruition, when the mouse cursor scrolls on a paragraph of a page in the facsimile, a frameset containing some information about that text portion (like the author of the quoted text, mentioned entities, translations, etc.) shows up on the screen (red circle, Fig. 6), whereas, clicking on it, the transcript of that portion appears on the left. The facsimile and the transcription box, indeed, are synchronized: when the user turns over the pages, the transcription automatically updates to reach the textual passage the facsimile is showing. Vice versa, by scrolling up or down on the transcription tab (that offers a sequential read, developed vertically), the facsimile quickly goes on or back to the point considered.

27This elegant format makes the reading fluid and pleasant. The user does not run into the discomfort of having to open other screens to fully enjoy the text and its meaning. However, the page layout loses this harmony when you disable the full-screen mode of the browser window.

Fig. 7: Index of Persons window; screenshot.

28 The PBN also presents two indices, e.g., the ‘Index of Persons’ and the ‘Index of Works’, related to people and works mentioned by Bufalini on his pages. The indices are well organized. The user can directly search among ‘People’ and ‘Works’ thanks to the search bar (circled in red, Fig. 7) or by browsing the list. A legend (on the bottom left, circled in green, Fig. 7) clarifies the different colors assigned to ‘Comments’, ‘Quotations’, and ‘Translations’. The possibility of arranging the page is appreciable, as I explained before, but in this case, the ‘Filters’ tab is unnecessary because it plays the same role as the ‘List’ of names. Besides, even if the user decides to close this box, the ‘Types of excerpts’ (the legend) would be closed consequently.

Fig. 8: Errors in DBpedia page links; screenshot.
Fig. 9: Working DBpedia page link to Gabriel Malagrida’s page; screenshot.

29 Furthermore, each author, listed alphabetically, is linked to authority files from VIAF and the Italian DBpedia where available, which disambiguate the identity of the person. In the same manner, each work is connected to external sources, VIAF and WorldCat, two identification systems that grant authoritativeness to the information shared by the digital edition. The links to DBpedia, however, are incorrect and, therefore, do not link to the correct page (Fig. 8). The server it.dbpedia.org does not exist. The correct one is www.dbpedia.org. 13 There are some exceptions, like the links to Louise Colet’s and Gabriel Malagrida’s pages. (Fig. 9)

Accessibility

Fig. 10: Reading of the button ‘Learn More’ in the Home of PBN and the explanation of the suggested steps to interact with it by VoiceOver; screenshot.

30 According to Jacob Nielsen, father of the ten usability heuristics, for a product like a website to be considered ‘usable’, it should possess the following five properties: it should have an easy-to-learn structure; be efficient to use; be easy to remember, meaning that the user can easily regain proficiency when returning to the site after a period of time; the site should always give the user the possibility to fix an error and, finally, its design should be pleasant to use (Nielsen, 2012). As I stated in the previous section, my personal experience as a user of PBN was a positive one, and the edition seemed to me to comply the aforementioned five points. However, I may not represent the end user, who could be visually impaired or blind. Thus, I checked if the edition met the required accessibility parameters to allow everyone to use the website, disabled people included, and the result was quite satisfying. A screen reader14 can recognize the structure of paragraphs, their headings, and their textual bodies, the role of the buttons (circled in green and red, Fig. 10), and the links in order to allow the user to know where and how it is possible to interact with the system.

Fig. 11: Inspection of the contrast value for a nav button; screenshot.
Fig. 12: Inspection of the contrast value for a button with a colored background; screenshot.
Fig. 13: Inspection of the contrast value for a piece of transcript text; screenshot.

31 The color contrast15, instead, differs from text to text: in the navbar buttons, it does not reach a high value (circled in green, Fig. 11), whereas, in the other points, where the text has a colored background (circled in green, Fig. 12) or the font has a more intense color, this value increases (circled in green, Fig. 13).

Fig. 14: Reading of the facsimile images’ box (in the red rectangle) by VoiceOver; screenshot.

32 Nevertheless, in the accessibility of PNB, there is a kink: in the HTML code, there are no ALT attributes to describe the images of the site, but this flaw is reduced by the fact that there are few meaningful images, which deserve this care, most of them are decorative images. However, this implies, for instance, that in the ‘Digital Edition’ area, the blind user can listen to the transcription and browse the page of the notebook (because of the correct access to the navigation button) without knowing that the webpage is showing the notebook facsimile (Fig. 14) since there is no alternative ALT description, which could indicate this information.

33Except for this lack, the edition meets the accessibility requirements for users with disabilities.

Text criticism

34Even though PBN does not devote a deep explanation to the editing principles, it is clear that the transcription made by the editors comes close to a diplomatic one. Francesco Citti writes: “all characteristics concerning spelling and punctuation, including any eventual errors or incorrect quotations were preserved. Particular marks (such as arrows, references, boxes), were reproduced and where this was not possible, were described (using notes […]” (Citti, 71). Indeed, the transcription philologically reproduces the original text, trying to maintain unaltered any passage, but in the digital edition, not all the symbols and signs are reproduced in the same way compared to what is visible in the facsimile. Some examples are given below.

Fig. 15: Memory of Luigi Petroselli, facsimile, page 7; screenshot.

35 In Fig. 15, there is a notable passage of the notebook. It is a personal comment of Bufalini, who remembers the impressions and emotions felt during the funeral of his friend Luigi Petroselli on 8th October 1981.

36The handwriting thins out; it follows the stream of the thoughts and, therefore, runs from the hand to the sheet, the line spacing gets smaller, and the time of the story is agitated. It has been written in one go. The erasures and second thoughts, indeed, have been purposefully kept by the author. The interpretation of the passage is undoubtedly difficult because of the unclear handwriting; however, the transcription proposed by the PBN wisely reveals the sense of those words.

37The transcript of the notebook is, therefore, sophisticated, but, as I wrote above, there is no documentation of the editing principles. In the ‘Philological note’ of the ‘Introduction’ page, we can read:

The transcription philologically reproduces the original text. However, in the digital edition we did not reproduce the exact symbols and signs used by the author to separate or graphically connect excerpts. Nonetheless, along with the transcription, the edition offers an interactive visualization of facsimiles, so that the reader can retrieve all the details. (Daquino et al. 2020)

38A further clarification about the philological principles is, instead, available in the section Digital edition: representation and encoding of the ‘Note-book’ of one of the main bibliographic references (Citti 2008, 71-77). The philological principles are indeed enclosed in the XML encoding, which expresses the interpretation of text fragments curated by the study center La Permanenza del Classico. For instance, a markup such as <div2 type="nota" place="margine"> is assigned to a margin note of the notebook, and <hi rend="sottolineato"> is assigned to a graphic element of the underlining (Citti 2008, 77). The transcription of graphical elements is quite intuitive because of their high resemblance with the symbols of the original pages. However, the absence of a legend of identified marks with the corresponding meaning is not admissible for a scholarly edition. Especially if, like in the example below (Fig. 18 and 19), there is not an evident rule applicable everywhere.

39The following is a brief list of symbols that I detected during my study of the edition:

  • ▬: erasures of unrecognizable words (e.g., pp. 1, 6, 60)
  • deleted: erasure of recognizable words
  • insertion/insertion: insertions of a word below and above the line (e.g., pp. 60, 62, 135)
  • underlining: lines traced by Bufalini
  • ⧟: reproduces the equivalent sign designed by Bufalini in some pages (e.g., pp. 24-25). It is a sort of intratextual reference.

Fig. 16: Transcription and facsimile of pages 24-25; screenshot.
Fig. 17: A detail of the facsimile, page 25; screenshot.

40 The following example (Fig. 16) shows both the black rectangle ▬ and the two connected circles ⧟. The first one, however, could be replaced by another symbol because the word deleted by the author is recognizable. Under the erasures, ‘Nitzsche’ can be seen (circled in red in Fig. 16 and zoomed in Fig. 17). Thus, ‘Nitzsche’ could be a better solution. Moreover, even if the symbol ⧟ is retraced by Bufalini with a red pen both times (p. 24 and p. 25), the editors reproduce it in red only the second time (circled in blue and orange, Fig. 16). This choice seems to be motivated by a graphical reference to interconnect two passages of the notebook.

Fig. 18: The facsimile of page 54; screenshot.

41 By a cross-check, I noted that all discrepancies that emerged between the full transcription and the facsimile in the previous version of PBN (like omitted square brackets) were fixed. Only one symbol is missing from the transcription (Fig. 18). It is quite common in the notebook, and it seems an inversion of words, but maybe it is not univocally interpreted by the editors.

Data modelling and ontologies

42The encoded transcription follows the TEI standard. In 2013, the center La Permanenza del Classico decided to migrate from TEI Lite P4 to TEI P5, and Francesca Giovannetti was charged with this task (Giovannetti 2015).

The new encoding structures the notebook into logical units that follow the physical pages. Each page is enclosed within a <div> element and the beginning of each page is marked by the elements <pb> and <milestone>, which respectively carry a @n attribute expressing the page number as assigned by the scribe and a @unit attribute to explicit which side of folio the page corresponds to (the value is either ‘recto’ or ‘verso’). Each page is further divided into subsections marked up as <div>, each of which contains a fragment of text. Three types of fragments have been identified: quotation, comment and translation. These are distinguished by the value of the attribute @type (e.g. <div type="quotation">). The relationships between fragments are established using the attributes @corresp or @ref. (Giovannetti 2015, 2-3)

Fig. 19: Part of the XML code, from line 2213 to 2243; screenshot.

43 Fig. 19 provides you with an example to show you some of the features that Giovannetti explained above.

44The XML/TEI file is downloadable on the ‘Digital Edition’ page, by clicking on the encoding symbol in the transcription tab. Nonetheless, it could be beneficial to provide users with an extra way of accessing the code through the ‘Home’ or ‘Introduction’ pages and possibly linking it to the ‘XML/TEI Encoding’ paragraph to make it more easily discoverable.

45‘The Metamodel’ and ‘The Knowledge Graph’ paragraphs on the ‘Introduction’ page explain that in the PBN, the traditional hierarchical markup and the semantic representation of data coexist. The conversion of the XML/TEI code to RDF (Resource Description Framework), conceived by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), results in the creation of a main knowledge graph16 of 8K triples and other separated graphs (about 800 triples). The curators follow the nanopublication approach, according to which each group of RDF statements is accompanied by three additional graphs containing information about the assertions’ provenance, the digital scholarly edition, and the nanopublication itself. The three graphs are interconnected, with one graph describing the nanopublication and linking the other three graphs.

46The project team opted to reuse ontologies from Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV)17 to shape the information held by the notebook. The choice of reusing existing ontologies rather than creating new ones is an appreciable effort to enable and enhance the cooperability between researchers who can rely on this model. The representation of the main graph was designed with the Open Annotation model. The SPAR Ontologies FaBiO18 and CiTO19 are used for describing bibliographic resources and citations. Indeed, through the pages of his notebook, in search of confirmation for his intuitions, Bufalini records the words of authors and philosophers who support his beliefs. CiTO is particularly suited for reproducing these circumstances. As stated in the ‘Introduction’ page, about 800 RDF triples, which make up 10% of the knowledge base, represent Bufalini’s notions regarding the relationships between the texts and authors in the notebook. To capture these ideas, HiCO, an ontology that expands on PROV-O and enables the specification of a statement’s source, is employed.

Long term use

Fig. 20: PBN’s description in “DH.arc projects” page; screenshot.

47 The official PBN website does not provide any updates on the long-term viability of the SDE. Consequently, it is unclear whether the edition is considered complete or if the project’s editors are still making modifications. Although the PBN is listed under the ‘DH.arc projects’20, linked in the footer section of the ‘Home’ page, with a description indicating ‘Release: 2018 (next release 2020)’ and ‘Status: Ongoing’, this information appears to be outdated since the last release was in 2020 (Fig. 20).

48Additionally, the PBN GitHub repository21 shows that the last update was made precisely two years ago. It is uncertain whether there is institutional support to ensure the edition’s long-term sustainability and provide lasting access. Therefore, it would be beneficial to inform users of the edition about these details.

Conclusion

49PBN fulfils some of the main requirements that a Scholarly Digital Edition should meet: it offers a critical representation of the historical document that is Paolo Bufalini’s notebook and it is guided by a digital paradigm. However, it lacks a deep philological documentation. Indeed, a potential printed version of this edition would lose contents and functionalities detained by the current one. The user is invited to interact with the system and to consult its metadata, to access reliable sources and a correct transcription, and its editors have the merit of sharing a high-value work previously unpublished. Besides, the work done for extending the reality of the edition to the Semantic Web environment is what makes this digital edition innovative and different from the others available nowadays. According to Patrick Sahle’s catalog of Digital Scholarly Edition22, indeed, among more than 700 cases of studies, only one makes use of Semantic Web technologies, and it is burckhardtsource project23, a semantic Digital Library that hosts the critical and semantic edition of the letters written to Jacob Burckhardt.

50The decisions that have guided PBN are described, but the lack of detailed documentation of the project represents a flaw. Conveying all the information about the project (currently spread into different scholarly articles24, mainly written by the same editors) on the PBN page would make it a self-sufficient source.

51Moreover, the notebook also appears very suitable for a critical edition with a critical commentary. Thanks to the dates noted by Bufalini at the top of some pages, it could be interesting to investigate some possible connections between his philosophical reflections and the coeval social and historical context, during which, let me stress, Bufalini still served as senator of the Republic. This is just an idea that genuinely came to me while leafing through the notebook. Alternatively, another suggestion could be to conduct a technical analysis of the various pens25 used by the author over ten years, which could unveil, for instance, the timing and the meaning of some comments and the underlining. So why not think about extending the ambitions and aims of the edition to a wider work in the future?

52Therefore, PBN is a valuable project that achieves a good result in terms of visualization of the facsimile, accessibility, and usability; it has a modern style that makes the fruition of the site an enjoyable experience and provides a well-done transcription of an unpublished work. In conclusion, although the editors did not mention further extensions of the edition, I would suggest they deal with some of the weaknesses of the edition and fully realize the high potential of PBN.



Notes

[1]  “the best energies of the generations of anti-fascism, War and Resistance” translated by the author of this review.

[2]  See https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/francesca.tomasi/en.

[3]  See https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/marilena.daquino2/en.

[4]  See https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/francesc.giovannett6/en.

[5]  See https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/martina.dellobuono2/en.

[6]  The above information about the professional career path of the editors and their responsibilities in the project is available in the section ‘Credits’, accessible through a hyperlink in the footer of the ‘Home’ and ‘Introduction’ pages. Once the page ‘Credits’ is opened, other hypertextual links enable the user to directly see their own home page in the Alma Mater Studiorum official website. There is no logo of the Alma Mater University, but in the footer, a brief section is devoted to giving information and links to DH.arc -Digital Humanities Advanced Research Centre.

[7]  A translation of this passage is available in Citti 2008, 66: “The Note-book is a kind of moral ‘note-book’, in which he gathers together his own thoughts and those of other writers, written during various moments of his free time, a break in a meeting or assembly or during a journey, to Cuba for example, odd moments of reflection in which his soul took refuge and was calmed.”

[8]   https://centri.unibo.it/permanenza/it/attivita-ed-eventi/quaderni-di-paolo-bufalini.

[9]  Translation by the author: “Many of the EDSs available online today adopt a document-centric structure. […] This is the typical paradigm of printing, transported from the analogue to the digital environment. The expansion of the Web of data calls for the redefinition of the concept of ESD by the academic community. The ESD […] has to be rethought as a set of entities, that also means resources uniquely identified with URIs and interconnected through the use of typed links (the RDF properties), according to a data-centric paradigm.”

[10]  The FICLIT Digital Library (https://web.archive.org/web/20231101071744/https://dl.ficlit.unibo.it/s/lib/item/198982) provides some further information about the physical characteristics of the manuscript codex, like details on its format and the color of the cover.

[11]  This detail is omitted on the official PBN page. Look at Citti 2008 , 67.

[12]  International Image Interoperability Framework. https://iiif.io/.

[13]  Therefore, to have the identifier of Vittorio Alfieri, for example, the link should be https://dbpedia.org/page/VittorioAlfieri and not http://it.dbpedia.org/resource/VittorioAlfieri.

[14]  I used VoiceOver by Apple. An explanation about how it works is available at https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/welcome/10#/.

[15]  For further information about contrast value, see https://www.w3schools.com/accessibility/accessibility_color_contrast.php .

[16]   http://projects.dharc.unibo.it/bufalini-notebook/resource/edition/.

[17]  Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV). https://lov.linkeddata.es/dataset/lov.

[18]  FaBiO, the FRBR-aligned Bibliographic Ontology. https://sparontologies.github.io/fabio/current/fabio.html.

[19]  CiTO, the Citation Typing Ontology. https://sparontologies.github.io/cito/current/cito.html.

[20]  Projects at /DH.arc. https://centri.unibo.it/dharc/en/research/projects-at-dh-arc.

[21]   Daquino, Giovannetti, and Dello Buono 2021.

[22]   Sahle 2008-2023.

[23]  burckhardtsource project. https://burckhardtsource.org/.

[24]   Citti 2008 and Daquino, Giovannetti, and Tomasi 2019.

[25]  Bufalini used black, blue, red, and even green pens. He sometimes took a pencil to underline pieces of text written with the pen. Page 140 of the notebook shows this mixture well.


References

Citti, Francesco. 2008. “Paolo Bufalini and the classics: towards a digital edition of his ‘Note-Book’”. Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage, 8(1): 65-89. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1973-9494/1396.

Daquino, Marilena, Francesca Giovannetti, and Francesca Tomasi. 2019. “Linked Data per le edizioni scientifiche digitali. Il workflow di pubblicazione dell’edizione semantica del quaderno di appunti di Paolo Bufalini”. Umanistica Digitale, 3(7). https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9091.

Daquino, Marilena, Francesca Giovannetti, and Martina Dello Buono. 2021. “Paolo Bufalini’s notebook”. GitHub.com. https://github.com/marilenadaquino/bufalinis-notebook.

Daquino, Marilena, Martina Dello Buono, Francesca Giovannetti, and Francesca Tomasi. 2020. “Paolo Bufalini, Appunti (1981-1991)” [Semantic Scholarly Digital Edition]. Digital Humanities Advanced Research Centre (/DH.arc), https://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6415.

DL FICLIT, “Paolo Bufalini, ‘Appunti 1981-1991’ (quaderno manoscritto)” https://dl.ficlit.unibo.it/s/lib/item/198982.

Giovannetti, Francesca. 2013. “Paolo Bufalini, Appunti (1981-1991). Una Proposta di Edizione Digitale.” Bachelor’s degree thesis in Digital Humanities. Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna.

Giovannetti, Francesca. 2015. “Combining TEI and Semantic Web Technologies to Annotate and Explore the Notebook of Paolo Bufalini (1915-2001)”, Master Thesis. Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna.

Matteoli, Giovanni. 2002. “Paolo Bufalini. L’impegno politico di un intellettuale, Catanzaro, Rubbettino.

Nielsen, Jakob. 2012. “Usability 101: Introduction to Usability”. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-101-introduction-to-usability/.

Sahle, Patrick. 2008–2023. A Catalog of Digital Scholarly Editions, Version 3.0. https://v3.digitale-edition.de/.

Tomasi, Francesca, Marilena Daquino, and Francesca Giovannetti. 2019 “Paolo Bufalini. Quaderno di appunti (1981-1991)”. Dh.arc. https://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6415.


Figures

Fig. 1: The navigation bar; screenshot.

Fig. 2: Detail of the facsimile; screenshot.

Fig. 3: Example of a bug that appears reducing the screen on PC; screenshot.

Fig. 4: Facsimile images and annotation of previous edition; screenshot.

Fig. 5: Digital Edition window – current edition – screenshot.

Fig. 6: Example of “People” filter result; screenshot.

Fig. 7: Index of Persons window; screenshot.

Fig. 8: Errors in DBpedia page links; screenshot.

Fig. 9: Working DBpedia page link to Gabriel Malagrida’s page; screenshot.

Fig. 10: Reading of the button ‘Learn More’ in the Home of PBN and the explanation of the suggested steps to interact with it by VoiceOver; screenshot.

Fig. 11: Inspection of the contrast value for a nav button; screenshot.

Fig. 12: Inspection of the contrast value for a button with a colored background; screenshot.

Fig. 13: Inspection of the contrast value for a piece of transcript text; screenshot.

Fig. 14: Reading of the facsimile images’ box (in the red rectangle) by VoiceOver; screenshot.

Fig. 15: Memory of Luigi Petroselli, facsimile, page 7; screenshot.

Fig. 16: Transcription and facsimile of pages 24-25; screenshot.

Fig. 17: A detail of the facsimile, page 25; screenshot.

Fig. 18: The facsimile of page 54; screenshot.

Fig. 19: Part of the XML code, from line 2213 to 2243; screenshot.

Fig. 20: PBN’s description in “DH.arc projects” page; screenshot.

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Factsheet https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/sturm/factsheet/ 2023-12-29T20:50:49Z Factsheet Read More »

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Resource reviewed
Title DER STURM. Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde
Editors Marjam Trautmann, Torsten Schrade, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz
URI https://sturm-edition.de/
Publication Date 2018
Date of last access 26.07.2023
Reviewer
Name orcid-icon Dieckmann, Lisa
Affiliation Universität zu Köln
Place Cologne, Germany
Email lisa.dieckmann@uni-koeln.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”?
yes
Contributors
Are the contributors (editors, institutions, associates) of the project fully documented?
yes
Contacts
Does the project list contact persons?
yes
Selection
Is the selection of materials of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Reasonability of the selection
Is the selection by and large reasonable?
yes
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)?
yes
Aims
Are the aims and purposes of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Methods
Are the methods employed in the project explicitly documented?
yes
Data model
Does the project document which data model (e.g. TEI) has been used and for what reason?
yes
Help
Does the project offer help texts concerning the use of the project?
yes
Citation
Does the project supply citation guidelines (i.e. how to cite the project or a part of it)?
yes
Completion
Does the editon regard itself as a completed project (i.e. not promise further modifications and additions)?
no
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?
yes
Contents
Previous edition
Has the material been previously edited (in print or digitally)?
yes
Materials used
Does the edition make use of these previous editions?
not applicable
Introduction
Does the project offer an introduction to the subject-matter (the author(s), the work, its history, the theme, etc.) of the project?
yes
Bibliography
Does the project offer a bibliography?
yes
Commentary
Does the project offer a scholarly commentary (e.g. notes on unclear passages, interpretation, etc.)?
yes
Contexts
Does the project include or link to external resources with contextual material?
yes
Images
Does the project offer images of digitised sources?
yes
Image quality
Does the project offer images of an acceptable quality?
yes
Transcriptions
Is the text fully transcribed?
yes
Text quality
Does the project offer texts of an acceptable quality (typos, errors, etc.)?
yes
Indices
Does the project feature compilations indices, registers or visualisations that offer alternative ways to access the material?
yes
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?
Collection of texts, Collected works, Papers, Archival holding, Letters
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?
Modern
Subject
Which perspective(s) do the editors take towards the edited material? How can the edition be classified in general terms?
History, 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?
Mobile
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?
Authors, Works, Structure, Documents, Persons, Places
Simple search
Does the project offer a simple search?
no
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?
no
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?
not applicable
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?
not applicable
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?
not applicable
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?
not applicable
Aims and methods
Audience
Who is the intended audience of the project?
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?
Enriched 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?
None
XML
Is the data encoded in XML?
yes
Standardized data model
Is the project employing a standardized data model (e.g. TEI)?
yes
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?
Facsimiles, Diplomatic transcription, Commentaries, Semantic data
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?
Persistent URLs
Interfaces
Are there technical interfaces like OAI-PMH, REST etc., which allow the reuse of the data of the project in other contexts?
General API
Open Access

(?)
Are the contents of the presentation freely accessible without subscription fee?
Is the edition Open Access?
yes
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)?
yes
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)?
yes
Reuse
Can you use the data with other tools useful for this kind of content?
yes
Declaration of rights
Are the rights to (re)use the content declared?
yes
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?
CC-BY
Personnel
Editors Schrade, Torsten
Trautmann, Marjam
Contributors Enders, Rainer
Kollatz, Thomas
Lorenz, Anne
Müller-​Dannhausen, Lea
Pirsich, Volker
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Der Sturm https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/sturm/ 2023-12-29T20:50:07Z Der Sturm Read More »

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DER STURM. Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde, Marjam Trautmann, Torsten Schrade, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (ed.), 2018. https://sturm-edition.de/ (Last Accessed: 26.07.2023). Reviewed by orcid-icon Lisa Dieckmann (Universität zu Köln), lisa.dieckmann@uni-koeln.de. ||

Abstract:

This paper reviews the digital edition Der Sturm – Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde, which aims to bring together all existing digital sources on the STURM company, to make them accessible and to link them with each other. Initiated by Herwarth Walden by founding the STURM magazine for contemporary art, the STURM company provided many different platforms (e.g., gallery, publishing, theatre) for the art scene in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century and had also a big impact on the international avant-garde. The digital edition currently offers facsimiles, transcriptions, and commentaries on a part of the letters, the encoding of the sources and texts is done in TEI-XML and can be downloaded or accessed via an API. Inventory lists exist for the other documents which link to the source of the digital image. All semantic and structural entities of STURM sources are permanently referenced using persistent identifiers.

Abb. 1: Titelseite Der Sturm – Monatsschrift für Kultur und die Künste, Juli 1916, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

1 Die Zeitschrift Der Sturm wird im Jahr 1910 von dem Publizisten, Dichter, Verleger und Komponisten Herwarth Walden (eigentlich Georg Lewin) in Berlin gegründet und dient als Plattform der avantgardistischen Kunstszene (Abb. 1). Der STURM avanciert in den folgenden Jahren zu einem regelrechten Unternehmen. Neben der Zeitschrift entsteht die STURM-Galerie, in der Walden zahlreiche Künstlerinnen und Künstler der Zeit ausstellt (u. a. Sonia Delaunay, Natalja Gontscharowa, Else Lasker-Schüler, Gabriele Münter und Marianne von Werefkin, Marc Chagall, Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky und Paul Klee). Darüber hinaus entwickeln sich die STURM-Abende, die STURM-Theaterbühne, der STURM-Verlag, eine Kunstbuchhandlung und die STURM-Akademie.1

2Herwarth Walden ist eine der Schlüsselfiguren der Kunst-Moderne in Deutschland. Zunächst hatte Walden 1903 den Verein für Kunst gegründet, dem zahlreiche bekannte Künstlerinnen und Künstler der Zeit angehörten (u. a. Thomas und Heinrich Mann, Else Lasker-Schüler, Rainer Maria Rilke, Alfred Döblin oder Gottfried Benn). Dieses Netzwerk baute er – auch zusammen mit seiner späteren Ehefrau Nell Walden – kontinuierlich auf. Es bildete die Basis für alle folgenden Entwicklungen. Die Zeitschrift Der Sturm war über 20 Jahre Sprachrohr europäischer avantgardistischer Strömungen in Literatur, Bildender Kunst, Theater, Architektur und Musik und hatte weitreichenden Einfluss auf die internationale Avantgarde.2

3Gerade die vielfältigen und gattungsübergreifenden Aktivitäten in unterschiedlichen Bereichen der Künste machen Herwarth Walden und das STURM-Unternehmen für viele geisteswissenschaftliche Disziplinen und auch für interdisziplinäre Fragestellungen interessant. Die Quellen, welche Briefe, Zeitschriften, Ausstellungskataloge, Theaterjahrbücher, verschiedene Schriften und andere Materialien wie Plakate oder Fotografien umfassen,3 sind von hoher Relevanz für die kunsthistorische Forschung, aber auch für die Geschichtswissenschaft, die Literaturwissenschaft, Theaterwissenschaft und Musikwissenschaft. Zahlreiche Anknüpfungspunkte gibt es aber auch für die Kunstmarktforschung. Darüber hinaus sind die Quellen natürlich auch disziplinübergreifend für die Digital Humanities von großem Interesse.

Abb. 2: Startseite Der Sturm – Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde.

4 Die Digitale Edition Der Sturm setzt sich das Ziel, alle existierenden digitalen Quellen zum STURM-Unternehmen zusammenzuführen, zu erschließen und untereinander zu verknüpfen, um eine (Teil-)geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde zeichnen zu können (Abb. 2).4

5Ausgehend von der Ausstellung STURM-Frauen, welche 2015 in der Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt gezeigt wurde und erstmals den weiblichen Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Avantgarde in den Blick nahm,5 wurde die digitale Edition als kollaboratives Digital-Humanities-Projekt an der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz insbesondere zusammen mit dem wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs konzipiert und sieht sich in erster Linie als Projekt im Bereich der Geschichte. Es ist an der Akademieprofessur für Digital Humanities angesiedelt, wurde von Marjam Trautmann und Torsten Schrade erarbeitet und wird weiterhin von diesen herausgegeben.6 Eine erste Grundlage für die Erarbeitung der digitalen Edition lieferte eine Masterarbeit von Marjam Trautmann (2018). Bislang sind alle Arbeiten an dem Projekt ohne eine externe Förderung durchgeführt worden, was hinsichtlich der Elaboriertheit des Projekts besonders betont werden muss. Dies ist sicherlich vor allem wegen der institutionellen Anbindung möglich. Alle Inhalte sind zudem frei zugänglich.

6Die Quellenedition umfasst sechs Abteilungen:

  • Abteilung I – STURM-Briefe
  • Abteilung II – STURM-Zeitschrift
  • Abteilung III – STURM-Kataloge (Ausstellungen)
  • Abteilung IV – STURM-Bühne (Theaterjahrbücher)
  • Abteilung V – STURM-Schriften (Bücher des Verlages)
  • Abteilung VI – STURM-Materialien (sonstiges Quell-Material)

7Alle sechs Abteilungen befinden sich noch im Aufbau: In der Abteilung I wurde bereits mit der Erschließung der Quellen begonnen, wohingegen die Abteilungen II bis VI zunächst die aus unterschiedlichen Quellen zur Verfügung stehenden Digitalisate in Bestandslisten versammeln. Die Digitalisate der STURM-Zeitschriften (Abteilung II) werden zum Beispiel von der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, die Digitalisate der STURM-Kataloge (Abteilung III) vom Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in München und die Digitalisate der STURM-Bühne (Abteilung IV) vom Blue Mountain Project zur Verfügung gestellt. Abteilung V und VI stellen jeweils Bestandslisten bereit, die im STURM-Verlag erschienenen Schriften bzw. andere Materialien verzeichnen und diese ggf. mit dem Link zu einem Digitalisat versehen.7 Der nächste Schritt für die Abteilungen II bis VI soll sein, Volltexte bereitzustellen und diese im XML-Format nach den TEI-Guidelines zu erfassen.8

Abb. 3: Parallelansicht von Transkript und Faksimile.

8 In der Abteilung I STURM-Briefe sollen die in der Handschriftenabteilung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz über 3.700 verzeichneten und digitalisierten Briefe von STURM-Künstlern und -Künstlerinnen an Herwarth Walden historisch-kritisch digital ediert werden. Ein Großteil des Materials, welches Briefe, Postkarten und Telegramme umfasst, ist zwar noch nicht erschlossen, drei unterschiedliche Briefkorpora sind aber bereits verzeichnet und vollständig ediert. Es handelt sich um Briefkorpora von Franz Marc, Jacoba van Heemskerck und Guillaume Apollinaire aus dem Zeitraum von 1913 und 1922. Die Briefe sind in der Regel an Herwarth Walden gerichtet, in einigen Fällen auch an seine Frau Nell. Insgesamt sind 179 Briefe mit Faksimile, Transkription und Kommentaren erschlossen. Die Digitalisate der Briefe und Postkarten sind in die Seite eingebunden, so dass eine Parallelansicht von Faksimile und Digitalisat möglich ist (Abb. 3), wenngleich die auf dieser Ebene angezeigten Bilder eher klein sind, sodass eine Vergrößerung zur genaueren Ansicht lohnt.

9Die Briefe von Franz Marc und Jacoba von Heemskerck wurden innerhalb der Masterarbeit von Marjam Trautmann erstmalig digital ediert: Die Briefe von Jacoba van Heemskerck wurden zwar bereits 2006 von Arend Hendrik Husseen publiziert und ediert, (Vgl. Huussen 2006) jedoch kritisiert Trautmann Husseens Edition aufgrund der Veränderungen in der Transkription im Vergleich zum Original teilweise stark,9 weshalb sie diese Briefe innerhalb der Masterarbeit nochmalig erschließt. Weitere edierte Briefe der Abteilung sind anschließend hinzugekommen, wie sich aus den Zitierhinweisen mit Publikationsdaten entnehmen lässt. Auch werden neue Versionen dokumentiert. Das Projekt verfolgt einen ‚work in progress‘-Ansatz, bei dem die Briefe vom Projektteam digital erschlossen und zeitnah veröffentlicht werden.10

10Bei der Transkription der Briefe werden Syntax, Interpunktion und Orthographie vom Original übernommen, wobei Silbentrennungen aufgelöst werden. Unterstreichungen und Hochstellungen werden abgebildet, Durchstreichungen nur dann, wenn sie als inhaltlich relevant erachtet werden und nicht nur zur Tilgung orthographischer Fehler dienen. Die Briefe werden nicht topographisch nachgebildet, Briefmarken, Poststempel, Wasserzeichen und Vordrucke und auch Postkartenmotive in der Regel nicht erfasst. Handschriftliche Beilagen der Briefe werden in die Transkription aufgenommen, beigelegte Zeichnungen und Zeitungsausschnitte werden in der Regel nicht transkribiert (außer ggf. handschriftliche Kommentare oder Unterstreichungen), aber als digitales Faksimile bereitgestellt.11 Die Dokumentation des Projekts ist nicht nur im Bereich der Textbehandlung sehr gut und ausführlich, sondern auf allen Ebenen, z. B. auch bei der Darstellung systematischer und technischer Aspekte. Dadurch wird die Erarbeitung der digitalen Edition sehr transparent und nachvollziehbar, was an dieser Stelle besonders hervorgehoben werden muss.

Abb. 4: Darstellung der Kommentare im Text und in den Fußnoten.

11 Die Kommentare sind in Fußnoten platziert und enthalten erläuternde Beschreibungen zu im Text erwähnten Ausstellungen, Vortragsreihen, Kolumnen, Kunstvereinen, Werken oder aber auch zu Begrifflichkeiten (z. B. ‚Sturmzettel‘). Darüber hinaus werden in den Fußnoten alle historischen und politischen Referenzen in den Briefen – insbesondere in Bezug auf Entwicklungen im 1. Weltkrieg – ausführlich kontextualisiert. In den Texten erwähnte und im Sturm oder anderen Medien publizierte Werke werden seitengenau verlinkt. Ferner werden hier bibliographische Angaben gemacht für Zeitschriften, Artikel und Bücher, die im Text genannt werden. Orte, Werke und Personen werden im Text selbst durch Links auf entsprechende Registereinträge, die jeweils Verweise auf Normdatensätze enthalten, verzeichnet (Abb. 4). Laut Projektwebseite sollen in einer nächsten Projektphase auch weitere Textzeugen – vereinzelte, schon in Büchern publizierte Briefe – in den Metadaten der entsprechenden Briefe dokumentiert werden.12 Die Codierung der Metadaten folgt den Guidelines der TEI (P5). Die abteilungsübergreifenden Editionsrichtlinien sind ausführlich dokumentiert.13

Abb. 5: Personenregister.

12 Das Personenregister führt 199 Personen auf, die in den Volltexten verknüpft sind und im Register auf den jeweiligen Eintrag in der Gemeinsamen Normdatei der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek (GND) verweisen (Abb. 5). Alle Registereinträge sind mit den jeweiligen Textstellen in den Briefen verlinkt. Das Ortsregister, welches neben der Liste auch über eine Karte erreichbar ist, enthält 87 in den Texten genannte Orte, jeweils verbunden mit der zugehörigen externen GeoNames-Normdatei. Im Werkregister befinden sich alle 172 im Volltext explizit erwähnten Zeitschriften, Zeitungen, Bücher, Artikel und Kunstwerke, die teilweise mit Links auf externe Ressourcen wie die GND und frei verfügbare Digitalisate versehen sind. Die Lemmata werden im Werkregister nach den in den Texten auftretenden Wörtern erstellt und sind daher in vielen Fällen wenig aussagekräftig (z. B. ‚Bild‘). Man könnte hier überlegen, das Register nach den Angaben in der GND ‚Autor*in/Künstler*in:Titel‘ aufzubauen.

13Die Register sollen abteilungsübergreifend erstellt werden, aufgrund des aktuellen Bearbeitungsstands sind die jeweiligen Quellenverweise bislang nur der Abteilung I Briefe zugeordnet und mit den entsprechenden Datensätzen verlinkt. Die einzelnen Registerlemmata führen zu einem Stammdatenblatt, auf dem die jeweiligen Registerinformationen (Normdatenverweis, Auftreten in den Quellen) nochmals separat aufgeführt werden. Perspektivisch soll dieses mit weiteren Informationen, beispielsweise aus der GND und Wikipedia, automatisiert ergänzt werden. In den Briefen selbst sind die Entitäten mit ihrem jeweiligen Register-Stammdatenblatt verknüpft. Ferner ist eine Erweiterung der Register durch die Erfassung von Ereignissen geplant (bspw. STURM-Ausstellungen).14

14Neben den zentralen Registerzugängen Person, Ort und Werk ist innerhalb der Abteilungen auch ein chronologischer Einstieg möglich. Hier befindet sich jeweils eine nach Jahren sortierte Liste der Quellen. Bei den Briefen kann man zusätzlich auch über die Künstler*innen auf die Inhalte zugreifen. Laut Projektwebseite werden weiterhin mittelfristig drei zusätzliche Quellenzugänge angestrebt: Ereignisse, Körperschaften und Sachbegriffe.15

Abb. 6: Bestandsliste der digitalen Bestände der STURM Zeitschrift.

15 Die Digitalisate stammen aus verschiedenen Quellen (s. o.) und sind in den einzelnen Abteilungen verlinkt und über Bestandslisten abrufbar (Abb. 6), in der Abteilung Briefe sind sie in die Seite selbst eingebunden, d.h. alle Briefseiten, alle Beilagen und eine Abbildung mit Farbkeil sind neben der Transkription in einer Thumbnail-Ansicht dargestellt. Es gibt auch eine Zoomstufe, jedoch sind die Abbildungen im Vergleich zu den Originalen hier auf eine Breite von 800px (Hochformat) bzw. 1200px (Querformat) skaliert, was aber für die Lesbarkeit absolut ausreichend ist. Die Originale dürften auch nicht wesentlich größer sein. Wenn man die Abbildungen höher aufgelöst sehen möchte, kann man auf den Link zum DFG-VIEWER klicken und gelangt zu den Originalen in der Staatsbibliothek Berlin. Die Zeitschriften liegen z. B. in Heidelberg digitalisiert vor. Es existieren DOIs für Heft, Einzelseite und Artikel, aber (noch) nicht für einzelne Abbildungen.

16Im Sinne der Nachhaltigkeit erfolgt die Codierung der Quellen und Begleittexte der digitalen Edition in TEI-XML. Sie werden darüber hinaus mit übergreifenden Metadaten (teiHeader) und Normdaten versehen. Persistente Identifikatoren und Permalinks sorgen zudem für eine dauerhafte Adressierung und Zitierbarkeit. Die Identifikatoren sind systematisch nach einem einheitlichen Schema angelegt und lassen durch ihre semantische Strukturierung auch Rückschlüsse auf die Quelle zu: TYP.ABTEILUNG.DATIERUNG.SIGLE.LAUFNUMMER[#][ABSATZ/BILD].[KOLUMNE].[SEITE/FOLIO]. Für einen Brief von Franz Marc ergibt sich daher zum Beispiel: https://sturm-edition.de/id/Q.01.19140115.FMA.01. Für einen STURM-Katalog vom 20. September 1913 lässt sich folgender Identifikator ermitteln: Q.03.19130920.STK.01. Der Aufruf einer URI führt immer zur aktuellen Version der Entität, wobei auch alle vorangegangenen Versionen flexibel aufrufbar sind, z. B. https://sturm-edition.de/id/Q.01.19140115.FMA.01/1. Dies ist ein weiterer vorbildlicher Schritt zu einer transparenten und nachvollziehbaren digitalen Edition.

17Die Systematisierung und Modellierung der zahlreichen unterschiedlichen und verteilten Quellentypen des STURM bildet hier den Kern der digitalen Methodik. Die Verknüpfungen und Beziehungen der Quellen untereinander werden derzeit unter Anwendung bestehender Ontologien wie dem CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model oder fachspezifischer Vokabulare wie dem Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) semantisch modelliert und perspektivisch als Linked Open Data verfügbar gemacht. Zunächst werden die in den bereits edierten Quellen annotierten Entitäten wie Personen, Orte und Werke semantisch verknüpft, anschließend auch Entitäten wie zum Beispiel Körperschaften und Ereignisse.16

18Für die Edition der Quellen in XML wurde eine Webanwendung für die native XML-Datenbank eXist entwickelt. Die Editionsarbeiten werden mit oXygen durchgeführt, die Online-Publikation der Quellen erfolgt aus der Anwendung heraus, indem alle Bestandteile als XML vorgeneriert und dann als statisches HTML ausgeliefert werden. Diese Softwarekomposition soll die Performance steigern und die Nachhaltigkeit verbessern, indem alle Komponenten und auch die Präsentationsschicht und die generierten Formate systemneutral verfügbar gemacht werden. Im Bereich der Textverarbeitung kommt TUSTEP zum Einsatz.17 Die Editionssoftware dieses Projektes steht unter MIT-Lizenz und kann über GitHub frei heruntergeladen und weiterentwickelt werden.18

Abb. 7: Die visuell ansprechende Webseite funktioniert auch auf mobilen Geräten.

19 Die Webseite ist responsiv gestaltet und funktioniert auch auf mobilen Endgeräten (Abb. 7). Sie ist klar strukturiert und sehr übersichtlich. Alle Informationen sind leicht zugänglich und jeder Bereich ist ausführlich dokumentiert. Auch Rahmeninformationen wie Impressum und Kontakt sind leicht auffindbar. Darüber hinaus ist die Webseite visuell ansprechend und mit Liebe zum Detail gestaltet. Die Besonderheit des Webdesigns besteht darin, dass die Typographie und die Druckgestalt der STURM-Zeitschrift in das Erscheinungsbild einbezogen wurden, indem die historische Schrift der Zeitschrift als Webfont eingebunden und der Text (je nach Endgerät) auch mehrspaltig visualisiert wird. Im Vorfeld wurde eine Schriftanalyse durchgeführt, um die historische Schrift zu ermitteln. Dabei wurde herausgefunden, dass die ersten Ausgaben mit der Schriftfamilie „Romana“ des deutsch-amerikanischen Schriftdesigners Gustaf F. Schroeder gesetzt wurden. Ein daran orientierter Webfont kommt nun in der Präsentation zum Einsatz.19

Abb. 8: Auszug aus einer TEI-codierten XML-Datei.

20 Für die Nachnutzung der Forschungsdaten und Texte stehen unterschiedliche Optionen zur Verfügung. Sie können zusammen mit der Anwendung heruntergeladen, aber auch über eine Schnittstelle als XML oder JSON bezogen werden. Es gibt vier Einstiegspunkte: /letters /persons /places und /works, die jeweils Registerinformationen zu den entsprechenden IDs ausliefern. Über den Auslieferungspunkt /files können direkt die TEI-codierten XML-Files der edierten Briefe (Bsp. https://sturm-edition.de/api/files/Q.01.19211211.JVH.01.xml) abgerufen werden. Der Link zu diesem XML-File ist auch bei jedem Datensatz zu finden (Abb. 8). Für die erschlossenen Personen und Werke kann eine Beacon-Datei heruntergeladen werden. Die Korrespondenz-Metadaten der STURM-Künstlerbriefe sind als Correspondence Metadata Interchange Format (CMIF) verfügbar. Alle Forschungsdaten, aber auch alle darüber hinaus veröffentlichten Materialien stehen unter Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Lizenz (CC BY 4.0) zur Nachnutzung zur Verfügung. Darüber hinaus sind weitere digitale Ressourcen wie eine Projektbibliographie oder verschiedene Publikationen zur digitalen Edition verfügbar. Auch hier muss erneut der fortschrittliche Ansatz der digitalen Edition hervorgehoben werden.

21Die unterschiedlichen Zugänge zur digitalen Edition (Künstler, Jahr, Abteilung, etc.) bieten einen guten Einstieg für eine explorative oder systematische Erforschung des Materials. Wünschenswert wäre hier die Ergänzung einer Volltextsuche, um gezielt nach Wörtern recherchieren zu können, die in den Briefen auftauchen. Für die kunstgeschichtliche Forschung wäre darüber hinaus ein eigenes Register für Kunstwerke interessant, deren Lemmata (wie oben bereits angemerkt) aber systematischer erfasst werden sollten. Die verwendeten Postkarten werden nur dann als Medium beschrieben, wenn es sich um ungewöhnliche Textdokumente, wie die Verwendung einer Ausstellungsdauerkarte als Postkarte handelt (https://sturm-edition.de/quellen/briefe/gap/Q.01.19130412.GAP.01.html). Aus kunsthistorischer Perspektive wären die Motive auf den Postkarten und ggf. die Motive auf den Briefmarken von Interesse und könnten evtl. in die Erschließung aufgenommen werden. Darüber hinaus würde sich eine Visualisierung der historischen Netzwerkanalyse zu Künstlerinnen und Künstlern anbieten.20

22Zusammenfassend lässt sich festhalten: Die vorliegende digitale Edition ist für die disziplinäre und interdisziplinäre geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung von hoher Relevanz, wird hier doch erstmalig der Zugriff auf die bereits vorliegenden digitalen Quellen aller STURM-Abteilungen ermöglicht, so dass ein umfassendes historisches Bild der STURM-Ära gezeichnet werden kann. Die vielfältigen Kommentare und Erschließungsinformationen in der Abteilung Briefe und die digitale Umsetzung tragen maßgeblich dazu bei. Im Sinne eines Informationsportals stehen zahlreiche weitere Meta-Informationen und Referenzen zur Verfügung, so dass man hoffentlich zukünftig auch über den Projektkontext hinaus in das STURM-Universum eintauchen können wird. Vor allem ist jeder Bereich der Edition, die Software, die Methodik etc. hervorragend und in vorbildlicher Art und Weise dokumentiert. Auch im Sinne nachhaltiger Softwareentwicklung und der Nachnutzbarkeit von Erschließungsinformationen ist das Projekt ein vorbildliches Beispiel, zumal noch einmal hervorzuheben ist, dass das Projekt bislang ohne jegliche externe Förderung ausgekommen ist. Besonders zu bemerken ist darüber hinaus die Einbindung des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses. Das Projekt überzeugt auf allen Ebenen und ist in der Erschließung und Dokumentation von Wissen und der Bereitstellung nachnutzbarerer Ressourcen zur Orientierung für ähnliche Projekte sehr zu empfehlen.



Anmerkungen

[1]  Vgl. Trautmann 2018, 25ff und vgl. auch Schirn Kunsthalle 2015a und 2015b.

[2]  Vgl. Chytraeus-Auerbach und Uhl 2013, 7-11, vgl. auch Sprengel 1991 und vgl. auch arthistoricum.net.

[3]  Vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/quellen.html.

[4]  Vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier insbesondere https://sturm-edition.de/projekt.html und https://sturm-edition.de/projekt/ziel.html.

[5]  Die Ausstellung fand statt vom 30. Oktober 2015 bis 7. Februar 2016. Schirn Kunsthalle 2015a.

[6]  Vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier insbesondere https://sturm-edition.de/projekt/ziel.html.

[7]  Für weitergehende Informationen vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier insbesondere https://sturm-edition.de/quellen.html.

[8]  Vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier die Unterseiten zu den Abteilungen II bis VI: https://sturm-edition.de/quellen/zeitschrift.html, https://sturm-edition.de/quellen/kataloge.html, https://sturm-edition.de/quellen/buehne.html, https://sturm-edition.de/quellen/schriften.html, https://sturm-edition.de/quellen/materialien.html.

[9]  Trautmann kritisiert u. a. Huussens starke Normalisierung, Ergänzungen von Interpunktion und Wörtern und teilweise falsche Transkription. Sie liefert auch einige Beispiele für ihre Kritik. Vgl. Trautmann 2018, 10f.

[10]  Vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/projekt/methodik.html.

[11]  Vgl. auch Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/edition/briefe.html.

[12]  Vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/quellen/briefe.html.

[13]  Vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/edition.html.

[14]  Vgl. auch Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/register.html.

[15]  Vgl. auch Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/projekt/methodik.html.

[16]  Die Daten werden noch nicht in dieser Form zur Verfügung gestellt. Die Informationen gehen aus einem Posterbeitrag der DHd 2019 hervor. Vgl. Lorenz, Müller-Dannhausen und Trautmann 2019, 273-275.

[17]  Diese Informationen finden sich in der gut dokumentierten Softwarearchitekturbeschreibung: Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/ressourcen/software.html. Weitere Informationen zur Steigerung der Nachhaltigkeit Digitaler Editionen am Beispiel der STURM-Edition: Schrade 2018.

[18]  Siehe https://github.com/digicademy/sturm-php-app/releases/ und https://github.com/digicademy/sturm-exist-app/releases/.

[19]  Zur Typographie vgl. Trautmann und Schrade 2018, hier: https://sturm-edition.de/ressourcen/software.html.

[20]  Eine umfassende Netzwerkanalyse ist bereits in Planung, vgl. Lorenz, Müller-Dannhausen und Trautmann 2019, 273-275.


Bibliographie

arthistorium.net. eds. „Herwarth Walden und DER STURM“, in: Themenportal arthistoricum.net. https://www.arthistoricum.net/themen/portale/sturm/.

Chytraeus-Auerbach, Irene und Elke Uhl. eds. 2013. Der Aufbruch in die Moderne: Herwarth Walden und die europäische Avantgarde. Berlin: Lit Verlag.

Huussen, Arend Hendrik. ed. 2006. Brieven van Jacoba van Heemskerck en Marie Tak van Poortvliet aan Herwarth en Nell Walden en anderen. 1911–1923. Haren (Cahiers uit het noorden Bd. 10).

Lorenz, Anne Katrin, Lea Müller-Dannhausen und Marjam Trautmann. 2019. „DER STURM. Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde. Drei Forschungsansätze“, in: DHd 2019 Digital Humanities: multimedial & multimodal. Konferenzabstracts, Frankfurt am Main, 274-276. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2600812.

Schirn Kunsthalle. 2015a. „STURM-Frauen. Künstlerinnen der Avantgarde in Berlin 1910–1932.“ Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Ausstellung (30.10.2015 – 07.02.2016). https://www.schirn.de/ausstellungen/2015/sturm_frauen/.

Schirn Kunsthalle. 2015b. „STURM-Frauen. Premiere für die Künstlerinnen der Avantgarde.“ Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Ausstellung (30.10.2015 – 07.02.2016). http://schirn.de/sturmfrauen/digitorial/index.html.

Schrade, Torsten. 2018. Annotate, Generate, Test, Deploy. Aktuelle Software-Engineering Methoden zur Steigerung der Nachhaltigkeit Digitaler Editionen. Düsseldorf. https://digicademy.github.io/2018-sustainable-editions.

Sprengel, Peter, 1991. „Institutionalisierung der Moderne: Herwarth Walden und , in: Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie, 247-281.

Trautmann, Marjam und Torsten Schrade. eds. 2018. Der Sturm – Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde, Mainz, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. https://sturm-edition.de.

Trautmann, Marjam. 2018. Eine Digitale Edition. Ausgewählte Briefe von Jacoba van Heemskerck und Franz Marc an Herwarth Walden (1914–1915). Mainz. http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-2176.


Abbildungen

Abb. 1: Titelseite Der Sturm – Monatsschrift für Kultur und die Künste, Juli 1916, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

Abb. 2: Startseite Der Sturm – Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde.

Abb. 3: Parallelansicht von Transkript und Faksimile.

Abb. 4: Darstellung der Kommentare im Text und in den Fußnoten.

Abb. 5: Personenregister.

Abb. 6: Bestandsliste der digitalen Bestände der STURM Zeitschrift.

Abb. 7: Die visuell ansprechende Webseite funktioniert auch auf mobilen Geräten.

Abb. 8: Auszug aus einer TEI-codierten XML-Datei.

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Factsheet https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/furnace-fugue/factsheet/ 2023-12-20T08:50:18Z Factsheet Read More »

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Resource reviewed
Title Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary
Editors Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak
URI https://furnaceandfugue.org/
Publication Date 2020
Date of last access 13.06.2022
Reviewer
Name orcid-icon Lang, Sarah
Affiliation University of Graz
Place Graz, Austria
Email sarah.lang@uni-graz.at
Documentation
Bibliographic description
Is it easily possible to describe the project bibliographically along the schema “responsible editors, publishing/hosting institution, year(s) of publishing”?
yes
Contributors
Are the contributors (editors, institutions, associates) of the project fully documented?
yes
Contacts
Does the project list contact persons?
yes
Selection
Is the selection of materials of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Reasonability of the selection
Is the selection by and large reasonable?
yes
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)?
no
Aims
Are the aims and purposes of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Methods
Are the methods employed in the project explicitly documented?
yes
Data model
Does the project document which data model (e.g. TEI) has been used and for what reason?
yes
Help
Does the project offer help texts concerning the use of the project?
yes
Citation
Does the project supply citation guidelines (i.e. how to cite the project or a part of it)?
yes
Completion
Does the editon regard itself as a completed project (i.e. not promise further modifications and additions)?
yes
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?
yes
Contents
Previous edition
Has the material been previously edited (in print or digitally)?
yes
Materials used
Does the edition make use of these previous editions?
no
Introduction
Does the project offer an introduction to the subject-matter (the author(s), the work, its history, the theme, etc.) of the project?
yes
Bibliography
Does the project offer a bibliography?
no
Commentary
Does the project offer a scholarly commentary (e.g. notes on unclear passages, interpretation, etc.)?
no
Contexts
Does the project include or link to external resources with contextual material?
no
Images
Does the project offer images of digitised sources?
yes
Image quality
Does the project offer images of an acceptable quality?
yes
Transcriptions
Is the text fully transcribed?
yes
Text quality
Does the project offer texts of an acceptable quality (typos, errors, etc.)?
yes
Indices
Does the project feature compilations indices, registers or visualisations that offer alternative ways to access the material?
yes
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?
Single work
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?
Early modern
Subject
Which perspective(s) do the editors take towards the edited material? How can the edition be classified in general terms?
History, History of Science, Musicology
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?
PDF
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?
Structure, Pages, Images, Other: Concepts
Simple search
Does the project offer a simple search?
yes
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?
yes
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?
yes
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?
no
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?
no
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?
no
Aims and methods
Audience
Who is the intended audience of the project?
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?
Enriched 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?
Normalization
XML
Is the data encoded in XML?
yes
Standardized data model
Is the project employing a standardized data model (e.g. TEI)?
yes
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?
Facsimiles, Diplomatic transcription, Edited text, Translations
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?
DOI
Interfaces
Are there technical interfaces like OAI-PMH, REST etc., which allow the reuse of the data of the project in other contexts?
None
Open Access

(?)
Are the contents of the presentation freely accessible without subscription fee?
Is the edition Open Access?
yes
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)?
yes
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)?
yes
Reuse
Can you use the data with other tools useful for this kind of content?
yes
Declaration of rights
Are the rights to (re)use the content declared?
yes
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?
CC-BY-NC
Personnel
Editors Bilak, Donna
Nummedal, Tara
Programmers Arceneaux, Amanda
Birkin, Diana
Bradley, Adam
Brusch, Crystal
DiGiulio, Scott
Elliott, George
Krasner, Rebecca
Levy, Allison
Mylonas, Elli
Rainwater, Jean
Rashleigh, Patrick
Sappenfield, Fiona
Tyler, Ben
Wasserman, Dashiell
Contributors Barnett, Michael, Brackett, Luthien
Bier, Graham
Bier, Robin
Cahn-Lipman, Kivie
Elgin, Lindsay
Jodry, Fred
Ludwig, Loren
Meinecke, Donald
Mishra, Sashi
Mundy, Charlotte
Quinn, Molly
Sutherland, Elisa
Taylor, James
Weiss, Zoe
Woody, Jonathan
]]>
Furnace and Fugue. A multimedia edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/furnace-fugue/ 2023-12-20T08:09:20Z Furnace and Fugue. A multimedia edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens Read More »

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Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak (ed.), 2020. https://furnaceandfugue.org/ (Last Accessed: 13.06.2022). Reviewed by orcid-icon Sarah Lang (University of Graz), sarah.lang@uni-graz.at. ||

Abstract:

Furnace and Fugue is a digital edition of Michael Maier’s (1568–1622) opus magnum, the emblem book Atalanta fugiens (1618a) in which Latin and German texts are paired with images and musical fugues in an enigmatic way to engage users of the book in deep meditation on alchemical subjects. The digital edition of the text itself, including an English translation based on a 17th century manuscript, is accompanied by a number of scholarly essays. A main feature is the MEI player, which includes a piano roll visualisation that allows users to experience the musicological makeup of Atalanta fugiens even without a background in music theory. The edition is a beautifully designed “haute couture” edition, intended to provide an example for the future of digital scholarly publishing. The project has used digital editing effectively to enable the multimedia experience that Michael Maier had likely envisioned for Atalanta fugiens, but which was previously inaccessible to most users of the book.

Introduction

1 Furnace and Fugue is a digital edition of the multimedia emblem book Atalanta fugiens (1618a), authored by alchemist Michael Maier (1569–1622).  In addition to customary text, this alchemical emblem book also contains a fugue to accompany each image. The narrative frame for the collection of fifty emblems is the ancient myth of Atalanta and Hippomenes’ race (Wels 2010, 150). Early modern emblematics tend to be meant as food for thought, whereby readers (or maybe rather, users) of the emblem book meditate upon the often obscure symbolism to get a moral message. Maier’s Atalanta fugiens is innovative in its adaptation of emblematics for alchemy and in its addition of a third layer (music) to the already multi-medial emblematics (consisting of text and image). Since both alchemy and emblematics on their own have a reputation of being somewhat hard to unriddle, the combination thereof supplies as an ideal source for a digital edition, offering lots of opportunities for including additional information, data enrichment, or other explanatory resources. More information about Atalanta fugiens can be found in Furnace and Fugue as well as all the other many publications on Atalanta fugiens and thus, shall not be repeated here in detail.1 This review2 will discuss Furnace and Fugue in the context of digital scholarly editing, describe the project website and its features as well as provide a short review of the scholarly essays included in the digital publication.

Fig. 1: Landing page.
Fig. 2: Landing page.

2 Furnace and Fugue is a project providing “A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary” (Nummedal and Bilak 2020a), the first born-digital monograph by Brown University Digital Publications (fig. 1 and 2). Eight interdisciplinary interpretative essays (Bianchi 2020; Bilak 2020; Forshaw 2020; Gaudio 2020; Ludwig 2020; Nummedal 2020; Oosterhoff 2020), including the introduction and essays by the editors (Nummedal and Bilak 2020b), along with three short introductory texts on Michael Maier, alchemy and printing (Rampling 2020; Tabor 2020; Tilton 2020), complement the edition of the emblem book Atalanta fugiens. Not only is this project unique because Atalanta fugiens is such a unique book and there has never been a multimedia edition for it before, but realising the author’s likely intentions, it is also still one of the first major digital editions in the context of alchemy research. Digital scholarly editing is not yet a common practice in the historiography of alchemy (Martinón-Torres 2011, 233), but minimal editions of TEI-encoded transcriptions of alchemical texts and their image facsimiles do exist.3 First digital edition projects have already been realised in the context of alchemy research, such as The Chymistry of Isaac Newton (Newman 2009) or the Making and Knowing project (Smith 2020).4 However, digital editions have not yet become a standard in alchemy research despite their unique suitedness for complex alchemical texts (Martinón-Torres 2011, 233).

3 Furnace and Fugue originated in co-editor Donna Bilak’s postdoctoral research at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (now Science History Institute, Philadelphia/PA) in 2013–2014, where it was further developed in a 2015 workshop and at a later 2016 Brown University workshop.5 The project was finally launched in 2020 in a YouTube event.6 Besides the two co-editors, Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak, a large team contributed to Furnace and Fugue over the years.7 As part of the project, a Furnace and Fugue Instagram account (@furnaceandfugue) was set up which hosted a series of posts for the 400th anniversary of Atalanta fugiens where different people (scholars and lay people alike) were invited to express their thoughts about one of the emblem images each.8  The project was awarded the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Creativity in Digital History, the funds of which are intended for the creation of a pedagogical companion website to promote public engagement with the digital edition.9 Furnace and Fugue was published by the University of Virginia Press (in the series Studies in Early Modern German History, edited by Erik Midelfort) as a born-digital publication.

Atalanta Fugiens, 1617/18

4Michael Maier (1568–1622) was a German iatrochymist (‘alchemist and doctor’) recognized for a number of alchemical publications in the early 17th century. Among his works, the alchemical emblem book Atalanta fugiens (1618a) stands out, as it is described as “one of the most beautiful books of alchemical literature of all time” (Figala and Neumann 1989, 49-50). Since the seminal 1969 study by Helena M. E. De Jong, Atalanta fugiens is considered the masterpiece of Maier’s oeuvre, probably because of its unusual multimedia combination of text, image, and music (Leibenguth 2002, 5-6).10

5Despite the fact that the whole range of possible interpretations of Maier’s multimedia masterpiece will probably never run out,11 there is consensus that Maier intended to promote alchemy in the context of courtly education and entertainment, for which emblems surely were an ideal medium.12 In their introduction to Furnace and Fugue, Nummedal and Bilak state:

Maier […] sought to elevate alchemy above its grubby artisanal roots, establishing it as a humanist, philosophical, emblematic, courtly art with the potential to access nature’s arcana. On this count Atalanta fugiens certainly succeeds, demonstrating that alchemy offered not just precious medicines or metals but also fodder for mathematical games, musical riddles, artistic virtuosity, and classical erudition. (Nummedal and Bilak 2020b)

6Some have even interpreted Maier’s Atalanta fugiens as a turn away from alchemical practice to the use of alchemical symbolism for poetic ends, merely repurposing existing material from earlier alchemical compendia as his poetic material (Wels 2010, 2013). While claims have been made that Atalanta fugiens lacks practical chemistry, no detailed explanations are provided to support these assertions.13 In fact, Rainer Werthmann has offered chemical explanations for several emblems within the book.14 Lawrence Principe characterises the work as follows:

It can thus be seen as part of the wider tradition of apologies of alchemy in which Maier uses the poetry, music, learned play, and beautiful images of his book to link chymistry to the liberal and the fine arts. His purpose, then, is not simply to entertain readers but rather to ennoble a practice generally considered dirty and laborious by making it attractive to humanist contemporaries. […] Atalanta fugiens is one instance of continuing attempts to address chymistry’s shaky cultural and intellectual position – an issue that plagued chymists from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century. (Principe 2013, 176-78)15

7Undoubtedly, Atalanta fugiens stands as Maier’s most extensively researched work, attracting numerous re-editions and articles written about it.16 While some of these publications primarily admire the uniqueness and peculiarity of Maier’s emblems without adding new insights, others provide valuable contributions to emblem studies (Rola 1988; Gaudio 2020; Wagner 2021). Furthermore, a number of publications revolving around the topic of ‘alchemy and music’ exist, most of which at least mention Maier’s Atalanta fugiens.17 Furnace and Fugue could build on the source critical work of De Jong, her English translation and contextual information as well as the Hofmeier edition with its abundant indices (Jong 2002; Hofmeier 2007; rez. Smith 2009; Tilton 2011). Beyond its multimedia aspects, Atalanta fugiens’ enduring popularity was probably the primary motivation for creating an edition of this book of Maier’s rather than another. And, as the various contributions in Furnace and Fugue testify, there is still much left to be said about it.18

Digital edition overview

8With its gorgeous design, Furnace and Fugue19 exemplifies what Elena Pierazzo refers to as an ‘haute couture’ digital edition (Pierazzo 2019), a term to describe editions “which are tailored to the specific needs of specific scholars” (Pierazzo 2019, 209) using significant amounts of funding. The editors assert in their introduction that Atalanta fugiens had never before been discussed in such a multidisciplinary manner (Nummedal and Bilak 2020b). Furnace and Fugue allows modern audiences, perhaps for the first time, to experience Atalanta fugiens in the way it may have been intended by the author. The editors state that De Jong’s fundamental 1969 study, which focused on source criticism, deflected attention from the unique multimedia combination that is Atalanta fugiens, reducing it to a traditionally text-centered approach. Furnace and Fugue aims fill this gap and explore neglected aspects, such as the relationships between images, texts, and music, in an interdisciplinary context (Nummedal and Bilak 2020b).  Additionally, the edition seeks to bridge the gap in knowledge between Maier’s intended audience, erudite Humanistic polymaths, and modern users. Furnace and Fugue makes Michael Maier’s unique multimedia emblem book more accessible in multiple ways: On the one hand, the scholarly articles addressing open questions of Maier research make this edition relevant for a scholarly audience (Bianchi 2020; Bilak 2020; Forshaw 2020; Gaudio 2020; Ludwig 2020; Nummedal and Bilak 2020b; Nummedal 2020; Oosterhoff 2020). On the other hand, three introductory essays on alchemy, Maier, and letter-press printing provide just enough background to let an interested public partake in the exploration of this unique remnant of early modern culture (Rampling 2020; Tilton 2020; Tabor 2020).

9In the following, we will proceed to explore the project website in the order of the different options in the navigation bar (‘Digital Edition’, ‘Essays’, ‘Images’, and ‘Contents’). Clicking on ‘Digital Edition’20 leads the user to a list of images, from which they can select an emblem to start with. Within the emblem overview, there is a ‘DOI’ button that copies the DOI (https://doi.org/10.26300/bdp.ff.maier) to the user’s clipboard.

Fig. 3: Edition View of the title page.

10 Above the emblem images, there are text links to the parts of Atalanta fugiens that do not have accompanying images, such as the title page, author’s epigram, dedication, and preface. However, from a usability standpoint, this design is not ideal as it may cause readers to overlook other parts of Maier’s text. It also hinders accessing the book in a traditional manner, where one would start from the beginning and navigate through the pages (which Nummedal terms the ‘horizontal mode’ in Nummedal 2020). Even if one clicks on the title page (fig. 3), there is no option to traverse the book in a linear fashion from the beginning.21 In order to continue to the Author’s Epigram, one must either backtrack to the overview or unfold the ‘Emblem’ navigation and skip to the right until reaching the appropriate section.

Emblem/Edition view

Fig. 4: Edition View of Emblem I with facsimile, text, emblem and the MEI music player.

11 Upon selecting an emblem, users are presented with a comparative view of the digital facsimile and its transcription (fig. 4). This view includes the emblem image, an MEI viewer for the accompanying fugue (Rashleigh and Brusch 2020), as well as the normalised English text of the epigram and discourse.22 Users can toggle between different viewing options, such as this side-by-side view (Comparative View), the facsimile (Original) only view, or the digital edition only (Digital Edition) view. To maintain orientation within the digital edition, users can click on the ‘emblems’ navigation at the top centre of the view, revealing a scrollbar that enables easy navigation between emblems using their respective images. Thus, users can check their position within the overall context of the book. While there is no recommended citation format for individual emblems, the URL structure is relatively straightforward.23

Personalised image collections

Fig. 5: Personalized image collections.
Fig. 6: Personalized image collections.

12 At the bottom of the window, users have the option to expand a customizable emblem collection that allows them to focus on their specific areas of interest (fig. 5 and 6). The collection can be saved or cited via a collection URL.24 From a Digital Humanities perspective, these user-customizable collections are particularly noteworthy. Donna Bilak’s essay demonstrates their added value well, where one can see customised emblem collections in use (Bilak 2020).

MEI viewer/player and piano roll visualisation

Fig. 7: Piano Roll Visualization of Emblem II.
Fig. 8: Edition View of Emblem II.

13 The music notation present in Atalanta fugiens was encoded using the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI), an XML standard for representing musical documents. There likely must have been a music-historical interpretation of the original scores as part of creating the edition, since the notes of the digital edition are not the same as in the historical book. The Verovio-based MEI viewer (fig. 7) enables readers to play and manipulate the music of the fugue by isolating certain voices (Rashleigh and Brusch 2020). The web MEI player aims to engage musicologists and non-musicians alike, providing visual note highlighting synchronised with the music playback. Users can isolate different voices and utilise a piano roll visualisation to grasp the melodic and imitative structures that constitute the fugues, which hold significance in relation to Maier’s alchemical interpretation of his multimedia book. This approach allows users who are less familiar with music notation and theory to comprehend the ‘message’ and visual flow of the fugues, including the interrelationships between different voices, as intended by Maier, who designed the music to add a layer of dimension to his text so that readers could meditate on the musical theory in conjunction with the text and emblematic images (fig. 8).

14The music notation was transcribed using the Sibelius software and converted to MEI using the Sibelius-to-MEI plugin. Subsequently, the resulting MEI/XML required adjustments for timing extraction using XSLT, which generated a table of MEI elements and their respective timings using the Verovio JSNode script. This step was necessary due to the inherent imprecision in human musicians’ performances compared to the exactness of the music notation in MEI/XML. To achieve smooth synchronisation between a viewer and a recording of human voices based on ideal durations from the sheet music, data had to be adapted to account for these discrepancies. Common Music Notation (CMN), an open-source format for hierarchically describing and rendering musical scores as images, was also created using Verovio on the command line. The Common Music Notation in SVG and the MEI table with timings were then assembled and inserted into the HTML template. Thus, “the project modernised the polyphonic fugues into animated notation that is playable in a web browser” (Rashleigh and Brusch 2020).

Image view

Fig. 9: Image Search.
Fig. 10: Image Search.

15 By clicking on ‘Images’ in the navigation bar, users are directed to the image search functionality (fig. 9 and 10).25 This feature provides a faceted search with categories such as ‘People’, ‘Nature’, ‘Traits’, ‘Architecture’, ‘Creatures’, ‘Actions’, and ‘Things’.

16Each category provides corresponding options for selecting emblems. Once the search results are displayed, users can choose to display the emblem tags or to jump to the emblem view.26 Additionally, there is a shortcut to add emblems to personal collections. Notably, the emblems of Furnace and Fugue do not seem to be included in existing emblem repositories or research engines such as Emblematica Online. Integrating them into such a resource would allow for a broader comparison of motives beyond Atalanta fugiens. In a project by the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, IconClass tags were created specifically for alchemy (IconClass 49E39) which could have been reused here to enhance interoperability between alchemy projects.27

The text

17 Furnace and Fugue includes a transcription of a 1618 edition of Atalanta fugiens as well as an anonymous 17th century English translation (Mellon MS 48, which will be discussed later).28 The TEI files contain detailed metadata, transcriptions, and the markup of personal names but no editorial interventions in the stricter sense.

Fig. 11: Text from Emblem II (diplomatic German).

18 On the right-hand side, users can choose between different text versions, including Diplomatic English, Normalized English, Diplomatic Latin, Normalized Latin, and Diplomatic German (fig. 11). This makes the edition very user-friendly, intuitive, and ‘non-threatening’ to users unfamiliar with edition practices and conventions. However, it has the serious drawback of silently presenting the reader with a historical translation without explicitly declaring it as such and which is made unrecognisable as such at first glance because the normalised view is served to the readers by default.29

19Thanks to the availability of normalised Latin, which can be generated from the TEI/XML downloadable via GitHub, one can easily feed the text into Natural Language Processing Pipelines, thereby offering data that can be reused in future Digital Humanities research. Named entities are marked up in the TEI data as well as in the image search JSON, which powers the semantic search. However, many entities (such as <persName>) marked up in the detailed TEI encoding, which also references the images, are not accessible to users within the edition itself. The TEI files are of high quality and could be reused in future projects to create a critical edition with word-level commentary.

The historical translation provided in Furnace and Fugue

20Due to its beautiful design, accessibility, and the lasting pop-cultural fascination of Atalanta fugiens, Furnace and Fugue is likely to attract a non-scholarly audience, who may not be aware of the potential pitfalls of re-using historical translations uncritically. The way the anonymous 17th century English translation from Mellon MS 48 is presented at this time, the historical translation is mostly in disguise: users need to actively look for information on the provenance of the translation in order to learn more about it. Most non-scholarly users of the edition are unlikely to undertake this investigation. The fact that the translation is a historical text of its own, requiring contextualisation, may even escape audiences who are theoretically aware of these issues because it is disguised behind the normalised reading version which appears as a default.

21Early modern translations are liberal renderings rather than trustworthy translations in our sense of the word. Translators are known to alter meanings or details to accommodate their own interpretation of the source text or alchemical theory – as Maier himself has done in his own vernacular-to-Latin translation of Basil Valentine’s Twelve Keys (Maier 1618b; Principe 2013, 153). Translations can be influenced not only by the limitations of expressing certain concepts in exactly the same way in multiple languages, but they can also be heavily influenced by the authors’ own views, their time, cultural contexts, and their own interpretations of the subject matter. Moreover, when historical translations are used without extensive editing or commentary, readers who are not well-versed in the target languages may overlook deficiencies in the translation. This is apparent, for instance, in a 17th century English translation of Michael Maier’s Viatorium (1618), where the translator evidently glossed over portions they did not fully comprehend, without acknowledging their likely uncertainty regarding the translation’s accuracy (McLean 2005). It is plausible that such a translation represents an initial or rough draft, where the translator did not invest significant time, effort, or care. Assessing the quality of such a translation in detail is challenging without conducting a word-by-word translation oneself. While a vague translation can offer readers an overview of the content of a Latin work, it is important to recognise that it is likely to contain errors or inaccuracies in the finer details. Many times, such historical translations, instead of making the meaning easier to grasp for a modern reader, obscure it even more, introducing additional room for misunderstandings of the message intended by the original author. Even if the translation of Atalanta fugiens used in Furnace and Fugue were substantially better than the aforementioned example, it would still not be an ideal choice from a scholarly standpoint and one would expect more critical engagement with this fact. In a field like the historiography of alchemy, where details can be crucial, the use of a potentially flawed 17th century translation is debatable to say the least, particularly if it is not clearly declared as such.30

Fig. 12: About the project page.
Fig. 13: About the project page (Credits).

22 As stated in the backmatter (fig. 12 and 13), “the Beinecke manuscript [the anonymous 17th-century English translation from Mellon MS 48] is a fascinating document in its own right and merits further research; however, the objective of Furnace and Fugue is not to provide a study of the Beinecke manuscript itself but rather to provide a reliable English translation of Maier’s Latin text” (Nummedal and Bilak 2020a).31 Yet how can those two aspects, both being a historical document which merits further research but also providing a reliable translation, be reconciled? The editors encourage curious readers to explore the Beinecke manuscript, but how can readers unfamiliar with textual criticism be expected to make anything of this text without further contextualisation? Can a historical document that merits further research ever be a reliable source, especially given the complexities of alchemical language? This relatively uncritical engagement with the source materials is a weakness of Furnace and Fugue. It is an acceptable decision to not put special focus on the interpretation of the Beinecke MS but it should at least have been contextualised in a way that makes users of the edition aware of its nature and the problems this might entail.

23To address this issue, an easy-to-find, clearly visible note should be added to highlight the frequent unreliability of historical translations and the reasons why they have to be used with caution. The lack of a critical edition and the debatable use of a historical translation were also remarked upon in the much shorter format of Reviews in DH (Bielak 2021).32 As it stands, the translation might lead some to assume incorrectly that this translation was produced throughout the Furnace and Fugue project according to modern translation standards. The authors could have opted to present the diplomatic translation as a default, as its wording immediately denotes it as a historical document. A button to
‘Switch to reading version’ would make it even more obvious. Alternatively, an information box could provide this vital context and explain the implications for the translation’s accuracy and trustworthiness.  A suggested citation could highlight the translation’s provenance from a historical source. None of these issues is a dealbreaker and they can be addressed through minor adjustments to the edition. I propose providing a more detailed explanation of the historical translation in the edition guidelines found in the back matter or about page, accompanied by a prominently displayed popup button or similar element near the text itself in the emblem view.

Scholarly essays

24Three introductory essays (Rampling 2020; Tilton 2020; Tabor 2020) make Furnace and Fugue a very well-rounded resource for audiences unfamiliar with the historical context of Atalanta fugiens. The scholarly essays that represent the scholarly engagement with Atalanta fugiens within Furnace and Fugue will be discussed in the following paragraphs (Bianchi 2020; Bilak 2020; Forshaw 2020; Gaudio 2020; Ludwig 2020; Nummedal and Bilak 2020b; Nummedal 2020; Oosterhoff 2020).

Fig. 14: Essay example (Text by Donna Bilak).
Fig. 15: Essay example (Text by Donna Bilak). Emblem collection.
Fig. 16: Essay example (Text by Donna Bilak). Essay citation.
Fig. 17: Essay example (Text by Tara Nummedal with a spotlight feature).
Fig. 18: Essay example (Text by Tara Nummedal with a image zoom feature).

25 Donna Bilak frames Atalanta fugiens as a case of playful encipherment typical of early modern courtly entertainment (fig. 14, 15, and 16): She argues that the fifty emblems can be interpreted as a magic square following Agrippa of Nettesheim’s writings (Bilak 2020). Michael Gaudio examines the landscapes depicted in the background of Merian’s etchings, interpreting them as a commentary on the measurement of nature, thereby inviting users of the book to look more closely (Gaudio 2020). Tara Nummedal interprets Atalanta fugiens as a reflection of Maier’s perspective on different types of reading (fig. 17 and 18): Atalanta fugiens invites readers to engage in both the ‘horizontal mode’, i.e. quickly turning pages and viewing the emblems in context, but also the ‘vertical mode’ encouraging in-depth study of individual pages and thereby engaging different modes of meaning-making. The digital edition reflects this theory in the affordances it offers to its users (Nummedal 2020).

26Richard Oosterhoff discusses allusions to mathematics such as the squaring of the circle in Maier’s earlier tract De Circulo Physico Quadrato (1616), explaining it as a problem that cannot be solved by theory alone, but only by a practitioner able to combine ‘ratio’ and ‘experientia’, highlighting the importance of practical expertise alongside theory. Craftsmen are, as Maier suggests, ‘squaring circles’ all the time in their everyday practice by approximation while the problem remains unsolvable to theorists. Maier likely means to insinuate that the same is true for gold-making, framing it as a solution that is theoretically knowable, just not yet known, exactly like Aristotle had framed the squaring of the circle (Oosterhoff 2020). Peter Forshaw discusses Maier’s mythoalchemy, comparing his mythoalchemical text Arcana Arcanissima (1614) with the mythoalchemical emblems of Atalanta fugiens (Forshaw 2020).

Fig. 19: Performance edition of Atalanta fugiens (as PDF).

27 The most groundbreaking revelation in Furnace and Fugue is that forty of the fifty fugues were copied from John Farmers Divers & Sundry Waies (1591), as Loren Ludwig demonstrates (Ludwig 2020). Contrary to the original assumption that Maier composed most of the fugues himself, this discovery places Atalanta fugiens in the reception line of an English crypto-catholic liturgical tradition but also raises questions about the role of the fugues in Maier’s overall work. While a crypto-catholic intention does not seem likely given Maier’s otherwise undoubtedly Lutheran faith, the reuse of those fugues underscores Maier’s belief in music as an alternative, yet equally suitable transmission medium for secret knowledge, be it spiritual or alchemical. Furthermore, Eric Bianchi suggests in his essay that Atalanta fugiens is unlikely to have been intended for performance but rather as an invitation to silent contemplation in the context of contemporary music theory – an ideal that Maier later realised in his Cantilenae Intellectuales (1622). Bianchi further notes that composing music and possessing theoretical knowledge of music theory were markers of belonging to the courtly elite, the intended audience for Maier’s book, unlike playing music which was the task of skilled artisans (Bianchi 2020). Nonetheless, Atalanta fugiens can certainly be performed, as demonstrated by the music player in the digital edition and the performance edition (fig. 19) created in the Furnace and Fugue project (Nummedal and Bilak 2020a).33

28While these contributions significantly enhance current research, particularly the insights regarding Maier’s fugues, central questions concerning Atalanta fugiens remain unanswered to this day, such as the absence of a critical edition or a chemical commentary.34 Although the project’s title does not explicitly promise a critical edition, the phrase “digital edition with scholarly commentary” (Nummedal and Bilak 2020b) may lead readers to expect an apparatus-style commentary rather than scholarly essays.

Footnotes in the scholarly essays

Fig. 20: Essay example (Text by Peter Forshaw with expanded footnote).

29 By default, footnotes in Furnace and Fugue are hidden and are also excluded from the printed PDF version. Users can only access them by clicking on each one individually to look up its contents (fig. 20).

30Usability and design decisions significantly impact how users engage with resources by providing certain affordances (Norman 2013). A digital scholarly edition should allow for the critical examination of sources, both primary sources and those referenced in scholarly articles. Making it difficult or cumbersome to open up all the footnotes, requiring individual clicks on each footnote, creates a user experience that discourages active engagement with footnotes. A scholarly edition should never discourage critical and scholarly engagement with the sources represented in it, no matter the gain in usability or the improvement in design or beauty.

31To address this issue, I recommend supplying a ‘display all footnotes’ button or providing a PDF version of the articles that includes all footnotes.

Contents and search bar

Fig. 21: Text search.

32 The search bar allows for full-text searching of all elements of the project, that is the scholarly essays as well as all versions of the digital edition (fig. 21). For instance, a fuzzy search for ‘Hesperid*’ (including a wildcard) yields results in ‘Discourse (Latin)’ and ‘Discourse (English)’ in Emblem 14, 22, and 25 as well as one result for ‘Discourse (Latin)’ in Emblem 50. Moreover, the term appears in both the body and footnotes of Peter Forshaw’s scholarly essay and in the body of Bilak’s essay. Notably, the full-text search also encompasses ‘Diplomatic German’, as evidenced by searching for ‘geheimer’, which yields one result in ‘Epigram (German)’ in Emblem 3.

Backmatter/about

Fig. 22: Overview of the emblems with the DOI button below the heading.

33 The backmatter/about page provides ample documentation on internal aspects of the project, such as technical implementation, editorial practices, project contributors, and their roles. It also acknowledges funding and covers the project’s timeline from 2015 to 2020, which encompasses its development, implementation, and subsequent publication. A DOI citation is available, but it is somewhat difficult to find in the edition, as it is displayed only when navigating to the overview view of the book (fig. 22).35

Technical implementation

34The backmatter/about site does not address the project’s digital sustainability. The majority of the content focuses on editorial guidelines and acknowledgments. The XML source data and code for the website creation are provided through a GitHub repository, allowing for data reuse. However, this approach may pose a risk to long-term archiving and sustainability, as relying on a proprietary platform like GitHub could result in potential data loss or discontinuation of services. It would be preferable for a non-commercial institution to ensure the long-term sustainability of the data.36 In total, there are four GitHub repositories containing all project data and code, with the ‘atalanta-media’ repository appearing as the most suitable point of access.37 Notably, there are no GitHub releases or data publications on Zenodo archiving parts of the edition.

35In terms of technical implementation, Furnace and Fugue employs a custom static site generator, presumably developed as part of a broader digital publishing initiative at Brown University. However, the rationale for not utilising existing tools for this purpose is not provided. While the use of plugins and JavaScript libraries (e.g., Waypoints, GreenSock Animation API (GSAP), GSAP ScrollToPlugin, Tumult Hype Pro, ScrollMagic) enhances the user experience, there is no explicit consideration of the project’s long-term sustainability. This concern extends to archiving and publishing data on GitHub, which may be subject to disappearance, as well as the JavaScript libraries that tend to become outdated relatively quickly. The aforementioned information represents the extent of the documentation regarding technical implementation, with more detailed information promised on the ‘atalanta-code’ GitHub repository, which, upon inspection, does not seem to contain such documentation.

36Data provided on the ‘atalanta-media’ GitHub are: TEI/XML for Atalanta fugiens, 1618 (in Latin and German), TEI/XML for Atalanta running, that is, new chymicall emblems relating to the secrets of nature (English), MEI/XML for the 50 fugues, WAV audio files for the 50 fugues in three voices, JSON image search terms for the 50 emblem images and frontispiece as well as JP2 image files for Atalanta fugiens, 1618 which link to the Brown Digital Repository (Olio).38 Everything except the JP2 images is hosted on GitHub repositories, i.e. a version control system for working code, not digital repositories meant for long-term archiving.39 The TEI files are available from the project’s GitHub repository and include detailed <teiHeader> metadata as well as, for example, the markup of personal names using <persName>.40 With the last GitHub edits in 2020, the project seems no longer to be under development. It is unclear whether the project will be actively maintained and who is the responsible party, if any, and the manner in which it will be done remains unclear, although it could be presumed that the Brown Digital Publishing Initiative may assume responsibility.

Furnace and Fugue and digital editing practices

37Part of the Brown Digital Publishing Initiative, Furnace and Fugue serves as a commentary on generating reputation, trustworthiness, and credibility in digital publishing, particularly within the context of digital scholarly editions. It combines practices from both digital scholarly editions and digital scholarly publications, positioning itself as a first-born digital monograph that includes a text edition but differs from other digital scholarly editions in significant ways. To understand Furnace and Fugue and its place within the Digital Humanities and digital scholarly editing community, it is essential to consider its context in the Mellon Digital Publishing Initiative grant. This initiative aims to develop new models for digital publications, primarily focused on making traditional scholarly peer-reviewed publications accessible as digital open-access editions while maintaining credibility within the traditional framework of tenure requirements. It does not directly derive from the Digital Humanities tradition of digital scholarly editing like it is usually reflected upon in reviews in this journal. This important information for understanding the institutional context of Furnace and Fugue can only be gleaned by listening to a number of podcasts, interviews, and online talks given by the editors and collaborators of the Furnace and Fugue project (New Books Network 2020; Cocks 2021). It might make sense to include a brief note on this in the ‘Backmatter’ of the digital edition, alongside other project information.

38Through these circumstances, Furnace and Fugue serves as an intriguing commentary on digital editions. On one hand, the project seeks to promote digital open-access publishing and align such publications with traditional academic expectations by partnering with a reputable publisher, the University of Virginia Press. This approach prioritises ‘extrinsic’
means of garnering reputation rather than fully utilising quality standards of the digital scholarly editing community, i.e., quality standards for digital editing as discussed frequently in this journal but that Furnace and Fugue does not make full use of (such as opting for the IconClass tagging system instead of a custom one to enhance interoperability or providing a critical edition of the text represented in the edition).41

39However, the self-fashioning of the project as a digital publishing pioneer may be explained by the unmentioned focus on creating a digital publication, that is a digitally-enhanced, peer-reviewed, open-access edited collection rather than a digital scholarly edition of Atalanta fugiens itself. While these decisions are valid, they could have been explicitly stated in the project description. Given the project’s aim to develop high-quality digital publications deserving the same respect as print equivalents, it still seems a bit unusual that more interest was not extended to the digital scholarly edition of Atalanta fugiens. The methodology of scholarly editing, digital or otherwise, has long been accepted as a means of ensuring quality and reputation for text editions. The title of the digital publication “a Digital Edition […] with Scholarly Commentary” (Nummedal and Bilak 2020b), though probably carefully chosen, may be considered somewhat misleading since scholars trained in text editing or textual philology would expect that commentary to relate directly to the text. According to a more traditional definition of a scholarly commentary, the articles provide inter- and multidisciplinary interpretations of Atalanta fugiens, not a commentary of the text itself. The title of the introduction, “Interplay. New Scholarship on Atalanta fugiens” (Nummedal and Bilak 2020b), confirms just that suspicion – that Furnace and Fugue is not primarily a digital scholarly edition of Atalanta fugiens but rather, provides new scholarship on Atalanta fugiens while at the same time making the text and facsimiles easily accessible online.

Furnace and Fugue as a digital edition

40The editors emphasise the fact that Furnace and Fugue is the first truly interdisciplinary resource on Atalanta fugiens, yet, its unique contribution pertains mainly to the area of musicology. This is reflected both in the edition of the source text itself, featuring an innovative MEI Viewer/Player, which allows even a lay audience to playfully explore the musical composition, and in the scholarly essays, which contribute consequential new insights mostly with regard to Maier’s fugues. While the other essays explore interesting aspects, they do not fundamentally change our understanding of Atalanta fugiens but rather expand on existing discussions. The team was certainly interdisciplinary, yet as to the pertinent question of why there was not a historian of chemistry involved, the project website remains silent.42

41Despite its other merits, which are plentiful, Furnace and Fugue could have done a better job of being more critical of its sources (the 17th century translation) and tailoring the resource for the needs of a scholarly audience (making footnotes more easily accessible in the scholarly essays). It is suggested that a note regarding the translation as well as a ‘show all footnotes’ button should be added to remedy these issues. As a third main issue, the long-term archiving situation is not clear and there is no statement on the data management plan.

42While Furnace and Fugue excels in visual presentation and interactive aspects, it falls short in textual criticism as it lacks a critical edition. While it is understandable that Furnace and Fugue opted to focus on aspects previous editions had paid less attention to (images and music), the text is still one of the three core elements of Maier’s multimedia work (text, image, music). Despite the significant scholarly interest in Atalanta fugiens, the text itself remains incompletely understood, lacking a commentary or comprehensive textual analysis. The absence of a critical edition or deeper engagement with the text is regrettable and leaves a sense of incompleteness. However, this was a deliberate decision by the editors, who have successfully achieved the goals they set for this digital edition of Atalanta fugiens.

Fig. 23: Introductory text by Hereward Tilton with map visualization.

43 Classifying Furnace and Fugue as a digital scholarly edition is somewhat challenging since it does not provide a critical edition of Atalanta fugiens per se, although it does offer scholarly essays on the subject. Thus, one could say that it meets the criteria of being both a digital edition and a scholarly resource. The map included in Tilton’s introduction, for instance, does a convincing job of visualising Maier’s travels, however, this particular feature does not truly lose its usefulness when given in print form (fig. 23). Then again, Digital Humanities scholars are probably not the primary target audience, as certain notable features, such as the ability to create personal emblem collections and interactive rearrangement, are not highlighted in the documentation as the noteworthy features they are. Furnace and Fugue includes interactive digital features that cannot be replicated in print, suggesting its classification as a digital scholarly edition.43

44Potential future work for Furnace and Fugue includes integrating the image search with Emblematica Online or similar sources. This would entail tagging the images according to the IconClass guidelines for easier comparison of potential visual inspirations. The text could benefit from a philological approach and a text-critical edition, providing explanations of visual motifs and sources directly on the text in the form of a traditional commentary. Having to retrieve and reassemble the information scattered throughout scholarly essays makes it hard to form one’s own interpretation of the text. Additionally, integrating the sources identified by De Jong or providing an easily searchable overview of De Jong’s findings would be valuable (Jong 2002, 330-33), maybe even linking to the sources of relevant facsimiles available online. Further research could explore the chemical interpretations of Atalanta fugiens, as done in Werthmann.44 Many publications suggest that this topic is already dealt with yet there are hardly any publications explaining why this supposedly is so.

45While Furnace and Fugue has a beautifully designed layout and a collaboration with a traditional publishing house, it could enhance the user experience by providing more transparent information about its sources, such as the 17th century English translation, and improving the accessibility of footnotes in scholarly essays. While the resource offers diplomatic and normalised transcriptions of the Latin-German original book and its 17th century English translation, textual scholars may desire a critical apparatus or commentary at the word or sentence level. The scholarly essays provide interpretations but do not constitute a philological or text-critical edition as implied by the project title.

46Additionally, the long-term archiving situation and data management plan require clarification. The insights gained from the project should be published in a Digital Humanities publication to make them accessible to the wider community and ensure preservation for the future, involving both the editors as well as the technical leads of the project.  Such a publication could summarise some of the information which can now be found by listening to a number of podcasts on the project but also explain decisions made in the process of creating this publication in more detail, especially with regards to experimenting with ways to handle the multimediality of the sources, potential reuse scenarios (and a long-term archiving plan) for the data and libraries created for the project. Furthermore, it would be great to have a deeper description of the digital aspects of the project which goes beyond the brief project description (backmatter/about). Overall, Furnace and Fugue is a stunning project that provides a valuable platform for both the general public and scholars to explore Atalanta fugiens.

Conclusion

47 Furnace and Fugue is the first born-digital monograph by Brown University Digital Publications, consisting of eight interpretative essays, three introductory texts, and a digital edition of the early modern emblem book Atalanta fugiens (1618a), including a MEI-based music player, using which individual voices can be isolated for analysis and demonstration, an invaluable feature for lectures or educational presentations. The edition shines in its elegant visual presentation and interactive capabilities. For instance, the feature to create personalised emblem collections is significant, allowing focused, individualised study. Additionally, the image search functionality lets users dive deeply into the material, even if it could benefit from integration into existing emblem databases and search engines to facilitate even broader comparative studies. Particularly noteworthy is the innovative MEI Viewer/Player, which opens new vistas for understanding Maier’s intricate fusion of music with alchemical thought, allowing even those without a music theory background to engage deeply with the fugues. The feature not only empowers academic scrutiny but also extends the project’s appeal to a broader audience.

48A flagship project and ‘haute couture’ digital edition, Furnace and Fugue pushes the boundaries of multimedia publication in the historiography of alchemy. Nummedal and Bilak have seamlessly blended the realms of digital scholarly edition and digital scholarly publication, with the edition being accompanied by essays from various disciplines. In the context of alchemy research, where digital scholarly editions are still relatively few, Furnace and Fugue is an innovative project, taking its place alongside the only two other major digital editions, the 2009 pioneering Chymistry of Isaac Newton project (Newman 2009) and the influential Making and Knowing project (2014–2021, Smith 2020). The comprehensive and interactive digital platform realises the multimedia experience likely envisioned by Maier for Atalanta fugiens, a feature hitherto inaccessible to most users of the book. In sum, Furnace and Fugue enriches scholarship on early modern alchemy and on the chymist Michael Maier. It sets a precedent in its multidisciplinary approach and multimedia digital edition. It represents a significant leap forward in understanding Maier’s multimedia vision and its implications for his alchemical thought.



Notes

[1]  Almost all research articles on Atalanta fugiens repeat the same information describing how the book is set up, so this information can easily be gathered from those sources.

[2]  The reviewer’s academic background is in Classics (Neo-Latin), history of science (esp. alchemy) as well as the Digital Humanities. Having written a PhD thesis on a use case for digital methods on the work of Michael Maier, I have a background in relevant aspects of the project under review (digital editing, history of alchemy, and Neo-Latin) and am deeply familiar with the research tradition.

[3]  Examples are: Maier 1617a, 1617b, 2009.

[4]  The 2009 Newton digital edition is currently being updated but beyond a number of tweets, no definitive information with more details has yet been published about it: https://twitter.com/alextheknitter/status/12555713769934397452020-04-29).

[5]   https://dbilakpraxis.com/project-atalanta/ further testify the creation process of Furnace and Fugue, such as: Nummedal and Bilak 2016.

[6]   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa2xtPmXBvc (“Furnace and Fugue Launch – August 25, 2020”, University of Virginia Press YouTube Channel).

[7]  Those contributors are listed in the backmatter/about page where acknowledgements also declare more informal contributions by a list of other individuals. The TEI data contains metadata making responsibilities explicit, however in other parts of the website, the declaration of individual responsibilities, especially on the Digital Humanities side of the project, remains somewhat vague. However, the ‘Credits’ section in the backmatter of the website gives a good overview of individual responsibilities.

[8]   https://www.instagram.com/furnaceandfugue

[9]   https://library.brown.edu/create/libnews/rosenzweig-prize/.

[10]  De Jong provided an overview of the sources for the mottos in Maier’s emblems in Jong 2002, 330-33.

[11]  As Principe argues: “Although the original sources of the imagery lie in earlier texts, Maier augments them with further connections, allusions, and meanings of his own. The epigrams are so intricate that it seems unlikely that any one reader would ever ‘get’ all the references, allusions, connections, and puns.” In: Principe 2013, 174.

[12]  Figala and Neumann write: “In general, Maier pursued the aim in his published books of raising and maintaining alchemy in the opinion of the educated public. He strove expressly to give it the rank in the contemporary hierarchy of sciences that he thought it deserved. It should stand, as the noblest of the scholarly disciplines, directly after theology, for its subject-matter is the investigation of the greatest secrets of God’s creation. […] A way the poeta laureatus Maier found to bring Chymia nearer to the educated public was by glorifying it in poetry. With this purpose he wrote not only three Latin poetic cycles, but also his best-known work and certainly one of the most beautiful books of alchemical literature of all time, the Atalanta fugiens, first printed in 1617.” In: Figala and Neumann 1989, 49-50. Also, Principe: “In contrast to Basil Valentine’s organised sequence of ‘keys’ that expound a single text and encode a single process, Maier’s Atalanta fugiens is a florilegium of images. It collects imagery and expressions from an array of earlier authors – Hermes, Morienus, Valentine, and others – and assembles them into one of the most intricate and rich layerings of meaning to be found in chymistry. Even though Maier probably did perform some laboratory work, his Atalanta fugiens lies much further from the world of laboratory practice than do the books of Valentine or George Starkey. (Some readers, including Sir Isaac Newton, nevertheless mined it for practical information about making the Philosophers’ Stone.)” In: Principe 2013, 174.

[13]  Figala and Neumann conclude: “It has been said that this book contains ‘no instructions at all for alchemical practice’. This is certainly true, and much the same might be said about all Maier’s published works.” In: Figala and Neumann 1989, 50. See also Principe 2013, 174-79.

[14]   Werthmann 2011, 214-26 covers emblems 24, 28, 34, 37, and 44. Another article by Rainer Werthmann on chemical interpretations of Atalanta fugiens will appear in the proceedings Michael Maier und die Formen (al)chemischen Wissens um 1600 (Volkhard Wels & Simon Brandl, eds.) titled Chemisches Wissen in Michael Maiers Atalanta fugiens.

[15]  On the general topic see: Principe 2013, 174-79.

[16]  On Atalanta fugiens (choice): Jong 2002; Szönyi 2003; Hlaváček 2006; Hofmeier 2007; Purš 2007; Wels 2010; Nummedal and Bilak 2020a, 2020b.

[17]  For example: Sleeper 1938; Sawyer 1966; Rebotier 1972; Meinel 1986; Kelkel 1987; Streich 1989; Godwin 1989; Eijkelboom 1990; Raasveld 1994; Hasler 2011; Limbeck 2019.

[18]  From a historiographical standpoint, one may question the editors’ decision to re-edit Maier’s most famous work when there would have been a large number of less well researched works of Maier’s left that might have benefited more from in-depth study. Especially as it seems likely that better knowledge of those works would be critical for the interpretation of Atalanta fugiens, which – due to its highly unusual nature – remains challenging to contextualise without deeper knowledge of Maier’s other works.

[19]  The bibliographic citation of the edition is: Nummedal and Bilak 2020a.

[20]   Nummedal and Bilak 2020a: https://furnaceandfugue.org/atalanta-fugiens/.

[21]  Clicking ‘Begin Atalanta fugiens’ on the contents overview (https://furnaceandfugue.org/search/) does lead to the title page but traditional ‘leafing through’ still is possible only through the unfolded emblem navigation.

[22]  The digital edition is based on this facsimile: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:698524/ = Maier 1618a. The Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) is an XML standard for encoding musical documents. More information on the MEI Viewer will be given below.

[23]  It looks like this: https://furnaceandfugue.org/atalanta-fugiens/emblem18.html.

[24]  Which looks something like this for a collection named ‘test’ containing the emblems 12, 13, and 14: https://furnaceandfugue.org/atalanta-fugiens/emblem18.html#collection_name=test&emblems=12,13,14. Thus, they are not actually saved but rather, when a user creates a collection, it really is just a custom URL which contains a name and the numbers of the emblems which are part of the custom collection.

[25]   https://furnaceandfugue.org/search/image-search.html.

[26]  The emblem tags appear to have been assigned within the project. I was able to trace them back to a JSON file being processed in JavaScript code, but they do not seem to be included in TEI/XML and also do not correspond to IconClass or similar standards. This seems like an interesting, yet underdeveloped feature. The tags become visible when one clicks on ‘Tags’ under the ‘Images’ section of the website. They then expand to reveal keywords with hyperlinks, and clicking on one of the tags displays all images tagged with that particular keyword. Essentially, the emblem image tags serve as a semantic image search. To effectively use this feature, one would need to initially discern which terms can be entered, meaning the functionality, while innovative, may go undiscovered except by happenstance or not at all with cursory engagement.

[27]   Frietsch 2017, discussed in Frietsch 2021, 117. IconClass tags for alchemy: https://iconclass.org/en/49E39.

[28]  A list of editions and translations, both modern and historical, can be found in Leibenguth 2002, 497-502. The translation from Mellon MS 48 seems to have been created soon after the publication of Atalanta fugiens in 1617/18, as the watermarks indicate the year 1625. The manuscript may have been intended as a draft for an English edition, as indicated by corrections from an editor (Leibenguth 2002, 498). Sloane Ms. 3645 from the British Library contains another English translation titled The flying Atalanta. An alchemical treatise dated in the late 1670s. There are at least two French translations, a 17th century exemplar at the Getty Research Institute, Box 27, as well as an 18th century exemplar at Muséum d’histoire naturelle (Paris), Ms. 360. A shortened version of Atalanta fugiens was published under the title Scrutinium Chymicum in 1687. Furthermore, a 1708 edition called Chymisches Cabinet is the basis for Hofmeier 2007 (with detailed indices). Jong 2002 also features an English translation with commentary. Perrot 1982 contains a French translation and commentary. The fact that so many translations and resources on Atalanta fugiens already existed may indicate a missed opportunity to consolidate this material into one comprehensive edition in Furnace and Fugue.

[29]  Due to the choice of providing only historical translations, there is, for example, no German view of the preface. In the other cases where the ‘Diplomatic German’ version can be selected, only the ‘Epigram’ is in German whereas the ‘Discourse’ remains in Latin, hinting at the fact that ‘Diplomatic German’ means ‘diplomatic transcription of the German edition’ (which happens to be bilingual) and does not necessarily describe the language of the text itself. This is one of the other confusions caused by not having included explanations on the translation in the edition view itself.

[30]  The recommendations for editing early modern texts emphasise the importance of carefully contextualising historical translations as independent historical sources. While reusing historical translations may appear as a convenient shortcut, it can be misleading. Editing historical translations requires substantial effort when done correctly. The Neo-Latin community is divided on whether to use historical translations at all, as their benefits may not outweigh the potential challenges they present (Mundt 1992). After all, interpreting and translating alchemical texts is and has always been a significant exegetical endeavour, not only due to their specialist terms and ‘Decknamen’ but also because certain words are generally hard to render in other languages without a partial loss in meaning. Furthermore, the translator might not have understood the original Latin or Maier’s intended alchemical message, for all we know. For instance, in the Viatorium translation (McLean 2005) it is evident that the translator uses formulations that obscure the meaning further when seemingly they did not understand what Maier was talking about. However, instead of acknowledging this uncertainty, as a modern editor would be expected to do, historical editors often glossed over such issues. Therefore, the true benefit of reusing a historical translation is questionable, and only individuals with sufficient Latin skills to read Maier’s original text would be in a position to notice such issues. This makes historical translations particularly unsuitable for lay audiences, who would benefit the most from having a reliable translation available.

[31]   https://furnaceandfugue.org/back-matter/about/. There is no further information on why the authors think it to be a reliable translation. Was this verified on a number of emblems or is there secondary literature to back this claim up? Is there any reliable information on the production context and intended use of Mellon MS 48? The English translation is based on the 17th century translation Atalanta running, that is, new chymicall emblems relating to the secrets of nature. Mellon MS 48. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15959780 (completely digitised).

[32]  In this review, the title of Maier’s book is misspelt as Atalantia instead of Atalanta.

[33]  The music edition can be found under this: https://furnaceandfugue.org/back-matter/music-performance/furnace-fugue-music-edition.pdf. The performance edition is a PDF version of Atalanta fugiens intended for singers who want to print out the sheet music for performing it.

[34]  Another edition with commentary is currently being prepared in the context of Sonderforschungsbereich 980 Episteme in Bewegung. Wissenstransfer von der alten Welt bis in die Frühe Neuzeit as a sub-project under the title of Michael Maiers Atalanta fugiens – Emblematische Verrätselung als Transferstrategie by Simon Brandl at FU Berlin. https://www.sfb-episteme.de/teilprojekte/sagen/A06/up_brandl/index.html.

[35]   https://doi.org/10.26300/bdp.ff.maier to be found here: https://furnaceandfugue.org/atalanta-fugiens/.

[36]  According to email correspondence with editor Tara Nummedal and project designer Crystal Brusch, long-term preservation is planned as part of the Brown Digital Repository (BDR): https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/. Even though the project has already ended three years ago at this point, there does not seem to be a permanent solution yet. This issue seems to be beyond the editors’ control and one can only hope that there will be an institution-wide solution for archiving born-digital projects in the future.

[37]   https://github.com/Brown-University-Library/atalanta-media, https://github.com/Brown-University-Library/atalanta-code, https://github.com/Brown-University-Library/atalanta, https://github.com/Brown-University-Library/atalanta-src (containing the custom static site generator). The latter is not a public repository.

[38]   Maier 1618ahttps://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:698524/

[39]   https://github.com/Brown-University-Library/atalanta-media.

[40]  An example is: https://github.com/Brown-University-Library/atalanta-texts/blob/master/latin/EpigrammaAuthoris.xml. However, it is not quite clear where the image tags in the tag view come from or whether they even are from IconClass. One would assume there must be a METS document in the background, yet this does not seem to be part of the GitHub repository. Only a JSON file is to be found which likely is responsible for the semantic search: https://github.com/Brown-University-Library/atalanta-code/blob/master/data/json/byterm_enh_array.json.

[41]  It is worth discussing briefly why this may present problems. Does a digital edition only hold value if it receives approval from a traditional press? Does this impose further restrictions on scholars engaged in scholarly editing? The involvement of a tenured professor at Brown University, along with the support of the Mellon Foundation and Brown Digital Publishing Initiative, highlights the privilege associated with such projects. Does this potentially set a precedent for other scholars interested in publishing digitally, requiring them to collaborate with prestigious presses, a practice rather uncommon in the world of digital scholarly editing? Does this implicitly suggest that a digital edition itself is not a reputable or serious publication? In fact, the digital scholarly editing community offers various quality assurance measures, both ‘extrinsic’ (such as this journal or the Reviews in DH journal), and ‘intrinsic’ by adhering to best practices in digital scholarly editing. These measures are intended to ensure quality assurance and prevent digital editions from being perceived as inferior to traditional print editions.Such concerns may have been understandable at a time when digital scholarly editing was less prevalent and online sources still carried a stench of untrustworthiness. However, one would expect that in 2020, a year where the necessity of ‘going digital’ became even more evident in academia, even in previously less digital spaces due to the global pandemic, this would no longer be a topic of discussion. As a member of the Digital Humanities community, one would assume that a digital edition is not viewed as inferior, even in the initial years of the project (2015/7). If anything, participating in or leading a digital project should be considered an asset for one’s Curriculum Vitae, as indicated in the podcasts where the editors discuss the motivation behind Furnace and Fugue (New Books Network 2020, Cocks 2021). Then again, this might serve to put into relief the contrast which still exists between the Digital Humanities and more traditionally-minded scholars with regards to digital scholarly editing. Admittedly, these statements were only made in more informal outlets such as interviews or podcasts, not reflected in the narrative on the website itself. However, it remains crucial to pay close attention to the rhetoric employed in digital edition projects, particularly those claiming to serve as flagship examples for inspiring future best practices.

[42]  Historians of chemistry, such as Lawrence Principe, seem to have acted as consultants at some stage of the project or at least participated in the 2015 and 2016 workshops. This criticism may have been anticipated and thus addressed with an explanation as to why the decision was made to not include such a central aspect.

[43]  On criteria for classifying resources as digital scholarly editions: Sahle 2016.

[44]   Werthmann 2011, 214-26 covers emblems 24, 28, 34, 37, and 44.


References

Bianchi, Eric. 2020. “Weight, Number, Measure: The Musical Universe of Michael Maier.” Furnace and Fugue. In A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/bianchi/.

Bielak, Alicja. 2021. “A Review of Furnace and Fugue, a Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalantia Fugiens, directed by Allison Levy.” In Reviews in Digital Humanities 2/12. https://doi.org/10.21428/3e88f64f.6f3a23ff.

Bilak, Donna. 2020. “Chasing Atalanta. Maier, Steganography, and the Secrets of Nature.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/bilak/.

Cocks, Catherine. 2021. “Going Digital: Considerations and Collaborations Interview.” In The H-Net Book Channel. https://networks.h-net.org/node/1883/discussions/8596862/going-digital-considerations-and-collaborations.

Eijkelboom, Carolien. 1990. “Alchemical Music by Michael Maier.” In Alchemy Revisited: Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of Alchemy at the University of Groningen, 17–19 April 1989, edited by Z. R. W. M. von Martels, 98. Leiden: Brill.

Figala, Karin, and Ulrich Neumann. 1989. “Michael Maier (1569–1622): New Bio-Bibliographical Material.” In Alchemy Revisited. Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of Alchemy at the University of Groningen. 17–19 April 1989, edited by Z. R. W. M. von Martels, 34-50. Collection de Travaux de L’Académie Internationale d’histoire Des Sciences 33. John d. North (Ed.). Leiden: Brill.

Forshaw, Peter J. 2020. “Michael Maier and Mythoalchemy.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/forshaw/.

Frietsch, Ute. 2017. “Bilder.” Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. http://alchemie.hab.de/bilder.

Frietsch, Ute. 2021. “Obscurum vocabulum: Begriffe der frühneuzeitlichen Alchemie und der Alchemie-Thesaurus der Herzog August Bibliothek.” In Alchemie – Genealogie und Terminologie, Bilder, Techniken und Artefakte. Forschungen aus der Herzog August Bibliothek, edited by Petra Feuerstein-Herz and Ute Frietsch. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 103-131.

Gaudio, Michael. 2020. “The Emblem in the Landscape. Matthäus Merian’s Etchings for Atalanta Fugiens.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/gaudio/.

Godwin, Jocelyn. ed. 1989. Atalanta Fugiens: An Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams, by Michael Maier, Translated by Jocelyn Godwin. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press.

Hasler, Johann F. W. 2011. “Performative and Multimedia Aspects of Late-Renaissance Meditative Alchemy: The Case of Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1617).” In Revista de Estudios Sociales 39: 135-44.

Hlaváček, Jakub. 2006. “K Alchymistické Interpretaci Antické Mytologie on the Alchemistic Interpretation of Ancient Mythology.” In Maier, Michael, Atalanta Fugiens. Prchající Atalanta Neboli Nové Chymické Emblémy Vyjadřující Tajemství Přírody, 11-33. Prague.

Hofmeier, Thomas. 2007. “Einleitung.” In Michael Maiers Chymisches Cabinet: Atalanta Fugiens deutsch nach der Ausgabe von 1708, edited by Thomas Hofmeier, 9-72. Berlin, Basel: Thurneysser.

Jong, Helena de. 2002. Michael Maiers’s Atalanta Fugiens. Sources of an Alchemical Book of Emblems. Lake Worth: Nicolas-Hays, Inc. Reprint of the original 1969 edition: Leiden: Brill. Ianus 7.

Kelkel, Manfred. 1987. “A la recherche d’un art total: Musique et alchimie chez Michael Maier: Maniérismes et discours hermétique dans Atalanta Fugiens (1617).” In Analyse Musicale: La Musique et Nous 8: 49-55.

Leibenguth, Erik. 2002. Hermetische Philosophie des Frühbarock. Die “Cantilenae Intellectuales” Michael Maiers. Edition mit Übersetzung, Kommentar und Bio-Bibliographie. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Limbeck, Sven. 2019. “‘Sounding Alchemy’. Alchemie und Musik in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit.” In Feurige Philosophie: Zur Rezeption Der Alchemie (Wolfenbütteler Hefte, Band 37), edited by Petra Feuerstein-Herz, 43-82. Wolfenbüttel: Harrassowitz.

Ludwig, Loren. 2020. “John Farmer’s Sundry Waies. The English Origin of Michael Maier’s ‘Alchemical Fugues’.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/ludwig/.

Maier, Michael. 1617a. “Examen Fucorum Pseudo-Chymicorum.”  Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. 1617. http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/46-med-4s/start.htm.

Maier, Michael. 1617b. “Symbola Aureae Mensae.” Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. 1617. http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/46-med-1s/start.htm.

Maier, Michael. 1618a. Atalanta fugiens: hoc est, emblemata nova de secretis naturæ, chymica, accomodata partim oculis & intellectui, figuris cupro incisi, adiectisque sententiis, epigrammatis & notis, partim auribus & recreationi animi plus minus 50 rugis musicalibus trium vocum. Brown Olio. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:698524/.

Maier, Michael. 1618b. Tripus Aureus, Hoc est, Tres Tractatus Chymici Selectissimi : Nempe I. Basilii Valentini … Practica una cum 12. clavibus… II. Thomae Nortoni … Crede Mihi seu Ordinale… nunc ex Anglicano manuscripto in Latinum translatum … III. Cremeri Cuiusdam Abbatis Westmonasteriensis Angli Testamentum. Jennis: Frankfurt am Main.

Maier, Michael. 2009. “Arcana Arcanissima (Digital edition of the 1613 edition): Ann Arbor, MI; Oxford (UK): Text Creation Partnership, 2008–09 (EEBO-TCP phase 1).”, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A06751.0001.001.

Martinón-Torres, Marcos. 2011. “Some Recent Developments in the Historiography of Alchemy.” In Ambix 58/3: 215-37.

McLean, Adam, ed. 2005. The Viatorium of Michael Maier. A 17th Century English Manuscript Translation Transcribed by Fiona Oliver and Voicu Ion Cristi. Glasgow: Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks No. 29.

Meinel, Christoph. 1986. “Alchemie und Musik.” In Die Alchemie in der Europäischen Kultur- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, edited by Christoph Meinel, 201-25. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden.

Mundt, Lothar. 1992. “Empfehlungen zur Edition neulateinischer Texte.” In Probleme der Edition von Texten der Frühen Neuzeit. Beiträge zur Arbeitstagung der Kommission für die Edition von Texten der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Lothar Mundt, Hans-Gert Roloff, and Ulrich Seelbach, 186-90. Editio / Beihefte 3. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110946932.186.

New Books Network. 2020. “D. Bilak and T. Nummedal, ‘Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta Fugiens’ (1618) (U Virginia Press, 2020).” Podcast “New Books in German Studies” 2020-10-08. https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/d-bilak-t-nummedal-furnace-fugue-digital-edition-michael/id671875824?i=1000495509588.

Newman, William (ed.). 2009. The Chymistry of Isaac Newton. Bloomington: Indiana University. https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/indexChemicus.do.

Norman, Donald. 2013. The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition. MIT Press.

Nummedal, Tara. 2020. “Sound and Vision. The Alchemical Epistemology of Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/nummedal/.

Nummedal, Tara, and Donna Bilak. 2016. “Tear the Books Apart: Atalanta Fugiens in a Digital Age.” https://blogs.brown.edu/libnews/nummedal-bilak/.

Nummedal, Tara, and Donna Bilak. eds. 2020a. Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta Fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary. https://furnaceandfugue.org/.

Nummedal, Tara, and Donna Bilak. 2020b. “Interplay. New Scholarship on Atalanta fugiens” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/introduction/.

Oosterhoff, Richard J. 2020. “Learned Failure and the Untutored Mind. Emblem 21 of Atalanta Fugiens.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/oosterhoff/.

Perrot, Étienne. 1982. Les trois pommes d’or. Commentaire sur l’Atalante fugitive de Michel Maier. Paris: La Fontaine de Pierre.

Pierazzo, Elena. 2019. “What Future for Digital Scholarly Editions? From Haute Couture to Prêt-à-Porter.” In International Journal of Digital Humanities 1(4): 209-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42803-019-00019-3.

Principe, Lawrence M. 2013. The Secrets of Alchemy. Chicago.

Purš, Ivo. 2007. “Emblémy Prchající Atalanty Michaela Maiera Emblems of Fleeing Atalanta by Michael Maier.” In Logos 1/2: 97-106.

Raasveld, Paul P. 1994. “Michael Maiers Atalanta Fugiens (1617) und das Kompositionsmodell in Johannes Lippius’s Sunopsis Musicae Novae (1612).” In From Ciconia to Sweelinck: Donum Natalicium Willem Elders, edited by Albert Clement and Eric Jas, 355-68. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Rampling, Jennifer. 2020. “Early Modern Alchemy.” In Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/front-matter/getacquainted/alchemy/.

Rashleigh, Patrick, and Crystal Brusch. 2020. “Multimedia from the 17th-Century Book to the 21st-Century Web: A Playable Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta Fugiens’.” In Proceedings of the Music Encoding Conference 2020, edited by Elsa De Luca. Boston: Humanities Commons. http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/ggym-sc21.

Rebotier, Jacques. 1972. “L’art de musique chez Michel Maier.” In Revue de L’histoire Des Religions 182/1: 29-51.

Rola, Stanislas Klossowski De. 1988. The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century. London: Thames & Hudson.

Sahle, Patrick. 2016. “What Is a Scholarly Digital Edition?” In Digital Scholarly Editing. Theories and Practices, edited by Matthew James Driscoll and Elena Pierazzo, 19-39. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. https://books.openedition.org/obp/3397.

Sawyer, F. H. 1966. “The Music in ‘Atalanta Fugiens’.” In Prelude to Chemistry: An Outline of Alchemy, Its Literature and Relationships, edited by John Read, 281-89. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Sleeper, Helen Joy. 1938. “The Alchemical Fugues in Count Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta Fugiens’.” In Journal of Chemical Education 15/9: 410. https://doi.org/10.1021/ed015p410.

Smith, Pamela. 2020. The Making and Knowing Project (2015–2020). https://www.makingandknowing.org.

Smith, Pamela H. 2009. “Rez: Thomas Hofmeier, Michael Maiers Chymisches Cabinet. Atalanta Fugiens Deutsch nach der Ausgabe von 1708, Berlin and Basel, Thurneysser, 2007” In Medical History 53:1: 141-42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300003434.

Streich, Hildemarie. 1989. “Introduction: Music, Alchemy and Psychology in Atalanta Fugiens of Michael Maier.” In Atalanta Fugiens: An Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams, by Michael Maier, Translated by Jocelyn Godwin, edited by Jocelyn Godwin, 19-89. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press.

Szönyi, György Endre. 2003. “Occult Semiotics and Iconology: Michael Maier’s Alchemical Emblems.” In Mundus Emblematicus. Studies in Neo-Latin Emblem Books, edited by Karl. A. E. Enenkel and Arnoud S. Q. Visser, 301-23. Imago Figurata Studies 4. Turnhout: Brepols.

Tabor, Stephen. 2020. “Atalanta Fugiens in the Printing Office.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s ‘Atalanta fugiens’ (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/front-matter/getacquainted/printing/.

Tilton, Hereward. 2011. “Rez: Thomas Hofmeier, Michael Maiers Chymisches Cabinet. Atalanta Fugiens Deutsch nach der Ausgabe von 1708.” In Ambix 58:1: 85-86.

Tilton, Hereward. 2020. “Michael Maier: An Itinerant Alchemist in Late Renaissance Germany.” In Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, edited by Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak. https://furnaceandfugue.org/front-matter/getacquainted/maier/.

Wagner, Berit. 2021. Merian und die Bebilderung der Alchemie um 1600. https://merian-alchemie.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/.

Wels, Volkhard. 2010. “Poetischer Hermetismus. Michael Maiers Atalanta Fugiens (1617/18).” In Konzepte des Hermetismus in der Literatur der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Peter-André Alt and Volkhard Wels, 149-94. Berliner Mittelalter- Und Frühneuzeitforschung, Band 8. Göttingen: V & R Unipress.

Werthmann, Rainer. 2011. “Kap. 13: Die Erlebnisqualität chemischer Reaktionen.” In Johann Rudolph Glauber. Alchemistische Denkweise, Neue Forschungsergebnisse und Spuren in Kitzingen, edited by Stephanie Nomayo, 213-28. Schriftenreihe des Städtischen Museums Kitzingen, Band 4. Kitzingen am Main.


Figures

Fig. 1: Landing page.

Fig. 2: Landing page.

Fig. 3: Edition View of the title page.

Fig. 4: Edition View of Emblem I with facsimile, text, emblem and the MEI music player.

Fig. 5: Personalized image collections.

Fig. 6: Personalized image collections.

Fig. 7: Piano Roll Visualization of Emblem II.

Fig. 8: Edition View of Emblem II.

Fig. 9: Image Search.

Fig. 10: Image Search.

Fig. 11: Text from Emblem II (diplomatic German).

Fig. 12: About the project page.

Fig. 13: About the project page (Credits).

Fig. 14: Essay example (Text by Donna Bilak).

Fig. 15: Essay example (Text by Donna Bilak). Emblem collection.

Fig. 16: Essay example (Text by Donna Bilak). Essay citation.

Fig. 17: Essay example (Text by Tara Nummedal with a spotlight feature).

Fig. 18: Essay example (Text by Tara Nummedal with a image zoom feature).

Fig. 19: Performance edition of Atalanta fugiens (as PDF).

Fig. 20: Essay example (Text by Peter Forshaw with expanded footnote).

Fig. 21: Text search.

Fig. 22: Overview of the emblems with the DOI button below the heading.

Fig. 23: Introductory text by Hereward Tilton with map visualization.

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Factsheet https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/bufalini/factsheet/ 2023-12-19T23:08:16Z Factsheet Read More »

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Resource reviewed
Title Paolo Bufalini, Appunti (1981-1991) [Edizione scientifica digitale semantica]
Editors Daquino, Marilena, Martina Dello Buono, Francesca Giovannetti, and Francesca Tomasi
URI https://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6415
Publication Date 2020
Date of last access 13.01.2022
Reviewer
Name orcid-icon Ammirati, Luisa
Affiliation Università di Bologna
Place Bologna, Italy
Email luisa.ammirati@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”?
yes
Contributors
Are the contributors (editors, institutions, associates) of the project fully documented?
yes
Contacts
Does the project list contact persons?
yes
Selection
Is the selection of materials of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Reasonability of the selection
Is the selection by and large reasonable?
yes
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)?
no
Aims
Are the aims and purposes of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Methods
Are the methods employed in the project explicitly documented?
yes
Data model
Does the project document which data model (e.g. TEI) has been used and for what reason?
yes
Help
Does the project offer help texts concerning the use of the project?
yes
Citation
Does the project supply citation guidelines (i.e. how to cite the project or a part of it)?
yes
Completion
Does the editon regard itself as a completed project (i.e. not promise further modifications and additions)?
no
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?
yes
Contents
Previous edition
Has the material been previously edited (in print or digitally)?
yes
Materials used
Does the edition make use of these previous editions?
yes
Introduction
Does the project offer an introduction to the subject-matter (the author(s), the work, its history, the theme, etc.) of the project?
yes
Bibliography
Does the project offer a bibliography?
no
Commentary
Does the project offer a scholarly commentary (e.g. notes on unclear passages, interpretation, etc.)?
no
Contexts
Does the project include or link to external resources with contextual material?
yes
Images
Does the project offer images of digitised sources?
yes
Image quality
Does the project offer images of an acceptable quality?
yes
Transcriptions
Is the text fully transcribed?
yes
Text quality
Does the project offer texts of an acceptable quality (typos, errors, etc.)?
yes
Indices
Does the project feature compilations indices, registers or visualisations that offer alternative ways to access the material?
yes
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?
Single manuscript, Other: a personal notebook
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?
Modern
Subject
Which perspective(s) do the editors take towards the edited material? How can the edition be classified in general terms?
History, Philology / Literary Studies, Other: Connecting the edition to the Linked Open Data’s environment to support a data-centric view of DSEs.
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?
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?
Authors, Works, Pages, Images, Persons
Simple search
Does the project offer a simple search?
no
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?
yes
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?
not applicable
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?
yes
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?
not applicable
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?
yes
Aims and methods
Audience
Who is the intended audience of the project?
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?
Other: Semantic Scholarly Digital Edition (SSDE)
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?
None
XML
Is the data encoded in XML?
yes
Standardized data model
Is the project employing a standardized data model (e.g. TEI)?
yes
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?
Facsimiles, Diplomatic transcription, Semantic data
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?
DOI
Interfaces
Are there technical interfaces like OAI-PMH, REST etc., which allow the reuse of the data of the project in other contexts?
Other: don’t know
Open Access

(?)
Are the contents of the presentation freely accessible without subscription fee?
Is the edition Open Access?
yes
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)?
yes
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)?
yes
Reuse
Can you use the data with other tools useful for this kind of content?
yes
Declaration of rights
Are the rights to (re)use the content declared?
yes
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?
Multiple licenses
Personnel
Editors Daquino, Marilena, Martina Dello Buono, Francesca Giovannetti, and Francesca Tomasi
Programmers Marilena Daquino
Contributors Martina Dello Buono
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Factsheet https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/catullus/factsheet/ 2023-12-19T22:05:16Z Factsheet Read More »

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Resource reviewed
Title Catullus Online
Editors Dàniel Kiss
URI http://www.catullusonline.org/CatullusOnline/index.php?dir=poems
Publication Date 2013
Date of last access 2022-05-14
Reviewer
Name orcid-icon Pensalfini, Martina
Affiliation Università di Bologna
Place Bologna, Italy
Email martina.pensalfini@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”?
yes
Contributors
Are the contributors (editors, institutions, associates) of the project fully documented?
no
Contacts
Does the project list contact persons?
yes
Selection
Is the selection of materials of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Reasonability of the selection
Is the selection by and large reasonable?
yes
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)?
no
Aims
Are the aims and purposes of the project explicitly documented?
yes
Methods
Are the methods employed in the project explicitly documented?
yes
Data model
Does the project document which data model (e.g. TEI) has been used and for what reason?
no
Help
Does the project offer help texts concerning the use of the project?
no
Citation
Does the project supply citation guidelines (i.e. how to cite the project or a part of it)?
yes
Completion
Does the editon regard itself as a completed project (i.e. not promise further modifications and additions)?
no
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?
no
Contents
Previous edition
Has the material been previously edited (in print or digitally)?
yes
Materials used
Does the edition make use of these previous editions?
yes
Introduction
Does the project offer an introduction to the subject-matter (the author(s), the work, its history, the theme, etc.) of the project?
no
Bibliography
Does the project offer a bibliography?
yes
Commentary
Does the project offer a scholarly commentary (e.g. notes on unclear passages, interpretation, etc.)?
yes
Contexts
Does the project include or link to external resources with contextual material?
yes
Images
Does the project offer images of digitised sources?
yes
Image quality
Does the project offer images of an acceptable quality?
yes
Transcriptions
Is the text fully transcribed?
yes
Text quality
Does the project offer texts of an acceptable quality (typos, errors, etc.)?
yes
Indices
Does the project feature compilations indices, registers or visualisations that offer alternative ways to access the material?
yes
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?
Single work
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?
Medieval, Early modern
Subject
Which perspective(s) do the editors take towards the edited material? How can the edition be classified in general terms?
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?
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?
Works, Structure
Simple search
Does the project offer a simple search?
yes
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?
no
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?
yes
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?
no
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?
no
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?
no
Aims and methods
Audience
Who is the intended audience of the project?
Scholars
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?
Text critical 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?
Transmission examined, Variants, Emendation, Commentary notes
XML
Is the data encoded in XML?
no
Standardized data model
Is the project employing a standardized data model (e.g. TEI)?
no
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?
Edited text
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?
None
Interfaces
Are there technical interfaces like OAI-PMH, REST etc., which allow the reuse of the data of the project in other contexts?
General API
Open Access

(?)
Are the contents of the presentation freely accessible without subscription fee?
Is the edition Open Access?
yes
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)?
no
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)?
no
Reuse
Can you use the data with other tools useful for this kind of content?
no
Declaration of rights
Are the rights to (re)use the content declared?
yes
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?
Multiple licenses
Personnel
Editors Kiss, Dàniel
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Catullus Online https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/catullus/ 2023-12-19T21:43:38Z Catullus Online Read More »

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Catullus Online, Dàniel Kiss (ed.), 2013. http://www.catullusonline.org/CatullusOnline/index.php?dir=poems (Last Accessed: 14.05.2022). Reviewed by orcid-icon Martina Pensalfini (Università di Bologna), martina.pensalfini@studio.unibo.it. ||

Abstract:

Catullus Online, a collection of the author’s poems and a repository of the conjectures collected through the centuries, was published by Dániel Kiss with the support of the Abteilung für Griechische und Lateinische Philologie of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, in 2013. Kiss faced many difficulties in the creation of such a resource, both from a technical standpoint and from the inner complexity of the philological tradition behind Catullus and his poems. He still ended up creating a rather interesting Scholarly Digital Edition, which has made such work more accessible, even to those that don’t typically belong in the academic world, offering the possibility to access high-quality photos of the manuscripts, a curated apparatus and much other information about the texts and the author, with just a simple click. What is mostly missing in this project is a more sophisticated digital interface, a lost opportunity to further enhance the quality of such a Scholarly Digital Edition.

Bibliographic identification of the Scholarly Digital Edition

1 Catullus Online was developed thanks to the research project An Online Repertory of Conjectures for Catullus (2009–2013), promoted by the Center for Advanced Studies and the Abteilung für Griechische und Lateinische Philologie of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, which financed the project. The result of the project is now reachable as a digital resource through the URL “http://www.catullusonline.org”.

2Dániel Kiss is the editor and creator of Catullus Online, and he was helped by a group composed of philologists like Giuseppe Gilberto Biondi and Michael Reeve and experts in Classics like David Butterfield, Carlotta Dionisotti, Julia Gaisser, Daniel Hadas, Stephen Harrison, Jeffrey Henderson, Giovanni Maggiali, and John Trappes-Lomax who worked with him on tracing conjectures – critical reconstructions of corrupted passages of text – and rare books. After having been published in 2013, the work on Catullus Online was further developed during the research project The textual transmission of Catullus (2015–2017), which was realized at the Universitat de Barcelona.

General parameters and introduction

3The idea behind this project first appeared to Kiss during his stay at Scuola Normale di Pisa in 2005, where he was confronted with the controversial textual history of Catullus’ poems and their manuscripts (Kiss 2020, 101). To better understand this complex history, Kiss went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007, where he was able to study the Halle-Ullman Papers as well as the collation and the transcription of 113 manuscripts of Catullus made by William Gardner Hale, Euan T. Sage, Berthold L. Ullman, and other scholars of the 20th century.1 By this time, he chose not to create a new edition of Catullus’ poems, and instead, he focused on “mapping the manuscript tradition and drawing up conjectures”(Kiss 2020, 101).

4 Catullus Online was first created as a repository of conjectures and later – with the development and employment of further elements – as a digital critical edition. The choice of an online publication was due to the various problems that came with printed editions since many were expensive and not accessible across the world, whereas a digital publication instead allowed Kiss to make his project more accessible and to display some additional elements (e.g., search tools, the possibility to visualize the images of the manuscript and to consult more easily the apparatus) that could not be used in a printed edition (Kiss 2020, 102-103).

5It is easy to understand the general parameters of Catullus Online since the titles of its various sections are very explicit, and Kiss has done a good job of explaining his work and his editorial principles through the two sections in the menu on the left in the lower side of the site: “ABOUT THE WEBSITE”, where he explains the journey to the creation of the project and then of the website, and “ABOUT THE REPOSITORY”, which instead illustrates his philological attitude towards the manuscripts and conjectures. In these two sections, there are many links to external web resources, which are clickable and offer the possibility to explore further the sources used for Catullus Online, although a few have not been updated and will lead to old or inactive pages. To know more about the methods used in this project, users can read Catullus Online: A Digital Critical Edition of the Poems of Catullus with a Repertory of Conjectures, an essay written by Dániel Kiss, where he further explains his working process and his editorial choices.

Subject and content of the edition

6 Catullus Online is composed of the full text of all 116 poems written by Catullus, accompanied by a critical, diachronic, and positive apparatus – meaning that both accepted and rejected readings are present (Macé and Roelli 2015) – containing the textual notes and all the conjectures which have been made on the text so far and which Kiss has collected through his work.

7The text of the poems is based on the manuscripts which stem from the Codex Veronensis (V), the oldest witness of Catullus’ manuscripts, and is directly accessible through “POEMS”, whereas to use the apparatus, the user will have to go to the section “POEMS WITH APPARATUS”. The biggest achievement of such a format is that it creates a free curated digital edition of Catullus, allowing the user both to have complete access to all the conjectures found by Kiss and to interact with different texts and even unpublished papers (e.g., Berthold L. Ulman’s ones). The editor focused on the investigation of his sources, many of which had not been verified by previous scholars. To do so, he proceeded to personally transcribe half a dozen undocumented manuscripts he found at Chapel Hill and two incunables that were not available in any libraries of Munich and neither online. This resulted in Kiss owning a collation, a reproduction, or a transcription of all known manuscripts of Catullus that were copied before 1520 and of all printed editions from the editio princeps of 1472 up to the first Aldine of 1502 (Kiss 2020, 104-105). Other than Catullus Online, there are many classical Latin texts already available online, but unlike this case, they are just digital reproductions of the printed edition, in some cases scanned with OCR, with no optional functionalities or a full apparatus (Nappa 2017).

8Another achievement of Catullus Online is the fact that users can directly visualize the images of the manuscripts, and the possibility to access these helps to shed light on the complex textual schema behind Catullus’ tradition, allowing academics – and other interested users – to consult the manuscripts behind the text of the project. More precisely, we can see images of only O, G, and T since Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – which is currently holding the manuscript R – does not allow the online publication of high-resolution images of its manuscripts outside of its website (Kiss 2020, 107). The possibility to directly see the images of the manuscripts employed for a critical edition is not frequent, mostly due to traditional copyright restrictions. In fact, many libraries do not allow high-quality reproductions of the manuscripts they store, and they are neither trained nor funded to handle the incoming need for digitization other than conservation. To solve this problem, new application format interfaces – e.g., IIIF, the International Image Interoperability Framework – are being implemented to offer the possibility to let the libraries – e.g., the Bodleian Library – continue hosting their images on their home servers while allowing other sites to display them, offering the possibility to easily share various cultural artifacts on the web (Mastronarde 2020, 116).

Fig. 1: Screenshot of the description of manuscript T.
Fig. 2: Screenshot of the description of manuscript 90.

9 The users can also access the section “TESTIMONIA”, where quotations of Catullus found in ancient and medieval texts are stored as indirect witnesses of his textual tradition, whereas through the section “BIBLIOGRAPHY”, the user will be able to find the bibliography that was used to create this project. “MANUSCRIPTS” gives us the full list of the manuscripts, and they are divided into two groups:

  1. T, O, G, R, m, S.
    These manuscripts are introduced with a small description of their main details, such as where and when they were copied, the writing used, their measures, and other important specifics, as can be seen in Figure 1.
  2. Other surviving manuscripts of Catullus’ Liber.
    They are each identified by a number and ordered alphabetically. This system is based on the list of manuscripts created by D. F. S. Thompson (1997, 77-92) and further elaborated and curated by Kiss in 2012. They have their main details – such as where they are now stored, and where and when they were copied – next to their identifying number, as can be seen in Figure 2.

10In “ABOUT THE WEBSITE” and “ABOUT THE REPOSITORY”, all the information about the methods and tools that have been used to build the repository and the website is given, and in “HELP” and “CONTACT”, you can find all the useful information to navigate the website and to properly contact the editor for feedback or further inquiries. While the general interface, the navigation bar, and the sections are given in English, the poems are available only in Latin, with no translation into any other language offered. To offer a translation at least into English would be very helpful since this edition is meant to reach not only scholars but anybody with Internet access (Kiss 2020, 103) and it might also involve people who do not have a solid base in Latin in the Catullus Online project. A few other features that could be implemented are sections or pages about Catullus’ life and his context, as well as to encourage other kinds of studies on the poems, such as historical or linguistic ones.

Aims and methods

11 Catullus Online was originally born as a repository of conjectures, but later, the editor chose to transform it into a digital critical edition by adding the text of the poems to the repository. The digital aspect of this edition was meant to allow for searchability through an interconnected text, a user-friendly and easy-to-use interface supported by all browsers, and reminiscent of the standards upheld by printed editions (Kiss 2020, 103). The constitution of the text is made in a rather traditional way, with an apparatus and a repertory of conjectures (Nappa 2017), to avoid distracting the viewer from the focal points and complicating the consultation of the website.

12The two missions of this digital critical edition are to offer a reliable text and to give students a research tool for the future (Kiss 2020, 113-114). An audience that could benefit from this edition is also undergraduates or secondary school students, as the easy-to-use interface would allow them to study the poems and the apparatus easily to deepen their knowledge (Nappa 2017). The main manuscripts are known as TOGR, and since they are all independent of each other, they all have source value (Kiss 2020, 103):

  1. Oxoniensis, copied in Northern Italy, 14th century, is currently stored in Oxford, Bodleian Library (O).
  2. Sangermanensis, copied in Verona in 1375, is currently stored in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (G).
  3. Romanus, copied in Florence 1375–1395, currently stored in Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (R).
  4. Thuaneus, an anthology of Latin poetry copied around 850 in central France stored in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France; unlike the others, it does not derive directly from the Codex Veronensis (T) (Kiss 2020, 101-103).

Fig. 3: Screenshot of the apparatus of verse 1 (carmen 1).

13 Another important element of a critical edition is the apparatus where all the conjectures are stored alongside the critical and textual notes. In this case, we can talk about a proper critical apparatus because the variant readings of the various witnesses are stored alongside the conjectures. The apparatus appears on the right of the poem either through clicking the option “SHOW FULL APPARATUS” or the triangle icon in the section “POEMS WITH APPARATUS” next to the first line of the poem. This way, you can easily visualize all the diachronic dimensions of the text with one click, as shown in Figure 3.

14The manuscripts are either recognized through their sigla or with their number in the list, while the apparatus itself is ordered chronologically, registering all the first instances of the conjectures stored inside of it. However, there are a few exceptions and limitations due to the still unknown relationships between many Renaissance manuscripts and humanistic conjectures. Not having a fully developed stemma of all of Catullus’ manuscripts and having many families of codices that cannot be linked to any of the parent nodes (TOGR) has made the task of fully understanding the relationships between manuscripts and their dates rather difficult and complex (Bertone 2017, 1). Kiss distanced himself from Mynors’ theories – refusing the theory of the eight layers of humanistic conjectures2 – and edition, in the aspects of presentation and editing, for example, by choosing not to reproduce here the fragmentary Priapea, placed by Muretus between the poems 17 and 21 (Nappa 2017).

15 Catullus Online does not follow the TEI Guidelines since, back in 2009, when the project was planned by the editor, he was not aware of the possibility of using models that were different from the digitized book and the text-only online publication. By then, the TEI consortium had already developed digital guidelines for digital critical editions like Catullus Online. However, these guidelines would not have been compatible with the project since the apparatus had to be marked up manually or semi-automatically. This would have been too time-consuming for the project at hand, although the guidelines might have been useful as a starting point since they offer a rather durable and robust system of tags (Kiss 2020, 103-104).

16Nevertheless, the website employed a standard for the texts: HTML, a formal recommendation by the W3C, used to showcase documents in a browser. Such a standard is solid and quite easy to use, making the project further interoperable and structured through an understandable setup. It can also be adapted for different formats (such as mobile or desktop) and can be used in all major browsers, as was Kiss’ original objective in creating his digital edition.

17Another aspect to take into consideration, aside from the employment of only a very basic but solid standard for the encoding of texts, is the fact that Kiss has not allowed Catullus Online to be citable through CTS (Canonical Text Services), losing a chance to allow the website to be accessible and employ the tools available through such a service (Blackwell and Smith 2014). This also limits the potentiality of such a project in the world of linked open data, which has by now become a norm in the digital humanities environment.

18All the information about the aims and methods of Catullus Online can be found in the “ABOUT THE REPOSITORY” section on the website and in the essay Catullus Online: A Digital Critical Edition of the Poems of Catullus with a Repertory of Conjectures (Kiss 2020, 99-114), where all methods, theories, and ideas are documented to fully explain the process behind the choices made on the text constitution.

Publication and presentation

19Kiss worked with Woodpecker Software to construct the website on which Catullus Online is presented, and with Stalker Studio for its design. To realize Catullus Online, the engineers of Woodpecker Software employed the programming language PHP and the open-source database management system MySQL, which has been employed mostly in the apparatus part (Kiss 2020, 105-109).

20As mentioned before, the TEI Guidelines are not employed, and neither a model like the one used by the digital project Musisque Deoque (Biondi et al. 2005) – a platform where many digital critical editions of Latin literature are stored – is used. The poems and the apparatus would need to be manually or semi-automatically encoded, which would be a rather slow process for the huge number of conjectures stored in Catullus Online. Instead, Kiss’ project seems to remain on the same level as the digitized books and the simple text-only online publications (Kiss 2020, 103-104). The sole standard employed by the author for the texts is, as mentioned above, HTML, offering a solid basis. However, this could be improved in the future by using the TEI Guidelines.

Fig. 4: Screenshot of the homepage.

21 The interface of Catullus Online is quite easy to understand, and this format does not require any introductory readings or explanations. However, if needed, the user can find a small summary of the various functions of this website inside the section “HELP”. The user is directly introduced to the poems in the central part of the homepage, whereas on the left part of the website, they can find the first part of the navigation bar, – composed of “POEMS”, “POEMS WITH APPARATUS”, “BIBLIOGRAPHY”, “TESTIMONIA” – the search tools, and the rest of the navigation bar – MANUSCRIPTS”, “ABOUT THE WEBSITE”, “ABOUT THE REPOSITORY”, “CONTACTS”, and “HELP”, as shown in Figure 4.

Fig. 5: Screenshot of Show Full Apparatus detail.

22 On the right side of this section, there are only two relevant elements, which are the Facebook icon – Catullus Online is very much active on Facebook – and the “SHOW FULL APPARATUS” option, which will lead the user from “POEMS” to “POEMS WITH APPARATUS”. There, the user can visualize the apparatus in its entirety and they can fully visualize various textual phenomena which are interconnected with the text (Kiss 2020, 107), as shown in Figure 5.

23As much as this interface is very easy to understand, it is not very accessible and usable since reading the text of the poems and their apparatus might be a rather tiring task for users. In fact, showcasing the full texts might be a bit troubling to read and follow, even more so on a screen with a small font and a high density of text.

Fig. 6: Screenshot of the three main icons.

24 In the section “POEMS WITH APPARATUS”, three icons appear next to the verse chosen, as shown in Figure 6. The triangle icon will make the critical apparatus appear on the right beside the verse studied. If the apparatus is longer than one line, the following verse is moved down, so that the text can be properly aligned, and the user can fully visualize all the conjectures and secondary readings for that specific line without having them overlap with the following verse. The rectangle icon, instead, will lead to the visualization of the images of the manuscripts at a lower quality, while clicking directly on the image will open another window in the browser, showcasing it in a much higher resolution and with a larger dimension. The images can also be downloaded, and they are extremely precious for the user since they allow them to witness the tradition behind Catullus’ poems directly. The quotation mark, on the other hand, will give the user further textual and contextual information, and in some cases, it is possible to also visualize a cross icon, which offers an overview of the different reconstructions of that specific line, also shown in the apparatus. This way, it allows a clearer layout separating the reconstructions from the other information stored in the apparatus.

Fig. 7: Screenshot Search by poems, apparatus, and testimonia option.
Fig. 8: Screenshot Go to the passage (poem and line) option.

25 It would be rather difficult and time-consuming to browse through the entirety of the collection. Hence, two search tools have been added to allow the user to jump directly to the part of the text they want to study.

  1. A search box that allows you to search a word inside the poems, the apparatus, or the testimonia (or through all three options); this is very useful because it allows the user to confront various passages in the text with a similar theme or use a specific keyword to see how it is differently used in the text, or its popularity, as shown in Figure 7.
  2. The second search tool can be employed, instead, to search a specific paragraph. It will simply jump into a specific poem or line selected, and obviously, in this case, it is important to point out that the user would need to know which specific passage they are searching. This second search tool is a bit faulty since it sometimes either does not work at all or will not jump directly to the poem or line selected, as shown in Figure 8.

Fig. 9: Screenshot of the alphabetic order of the Bibliography section.

26 To also facilitate the navigation of the “BIBLIOGRAPHY” page, the author has organized the bibliography through quick links to individual letters, alphabetically ordered, as shown in Figure 9.

27All the rights of this project – the author’s research, his work on the text, and the website – are copyrighted by Dániel Kiss (2013, 2017). For the images, instead, all the rights belong to the institution hosting the photographed manuscripts. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France has given the permission to reproduce digitally the images of the manuscripts T and G, whereas the Bodleian Library at first requested a small fee for the publication of the images of O, but now they are freely available on the Digital Bodleian (Mastronarde 2020, 116-117).

28The website is not hosted on an institutional site, although that is something that Kiss hopes to obtain in the future since it would make the site much more stable and durable in time. Currently, he has been paying an annual fee to Woodpecker Software for the domain rights of Catullus Online. The platform is accessible from every kind of browser, although in the future, technological change problems might prove to be rather intense for the website, even more for mobile users since a responsive version has not been developed yet and a printed edition is not available (Kiss 2020, 109-112).

29It is also important to state that the content and rendering of the website are tightly linked, which appears to be quite a limitation for the project as it does not allow the ordinary user to consult the project offline, and neither can they store the texts and apparatus elsewhere to properly annotate them. It would be good in the future to study a solution that would allow the users to access the website differently, without relying entirely on its rendering, and by allowing the possibility to download the apparatus and texts or even just simply mark the texts with their annotations.

30In the future, it is also important to review the content of Catullus Online since, over the years, growing feedback from the users has been collected. This could be useful to update the edition with newfound conjectures and ideas, and this was possible thanks to the presence of Catullus Online on Facebook, which has proved to be extremely useful for the first years of the website since it allowed the editor to promote it in groups about classics and digital humanities (Kiss 2020, 109).

Conclusion

31According to Patrick Sahle’s definition, Catullus Online is a Scholarly Edition, a “critical representation of historic documents” (Sahle 2016, 23). The choices regarding the reproduction of the text and the additional material chosen to portray the historical tradition behind Catullus’ poems are explained, justified, and stated by the editor through specific editorial methods and based on academic studies that are respected throughout the entire edition. The historical aspect of this edition, on the other hand, is visible in the apparatus and the “MANUSCRIPT” section where the user can fully witness the diachronic dimension of Catullus’ tradition, being able to bridge the distance in time directly. There is also a full representation of the subject and all the self-stated rules – e.g., to offer a way to freely access the conjectures, to collect as many conjectures as possible and to give the user some extra tools to further understand the context and historical tradition – that are respected throughout the entirety of the edition (Sahle 2016, 23-26).

32It is also a Scholarly Digital Edition but with some reservations: it imposes a specific digital paradigm – an algorithm creates a specific way to visualize the text (Sahle 2016, 26-27) – and a specific standard for the texts – HTML. These two elements are followed in the entirety of the edition’s creation, but many aspects (e.g., “accessibility, usability, and computability”) remain truly underdeveloped. Regarding this, I do believe that the lack of models and examples at the time the author started working on Catullus Online brought Kiss to have a very basic digital model for his project: there is no employment of shared practices such as TEI or CTS, and the interface of the website struggles to be responsive and accessible.

33As stated in the paragraphs above, Catullus Online does certainly offer the user a scholarly edition in a digital format, and even though it solves many of the problems that come with a printed edition (e.g., the possibility to access the texts and the apparatus freely), it still retains some of the typical characteristics of printed editions, such as the impossibility to view the edition in different formats or the limited responsivity, due to the absence, for example, of an infrastructure that adapts to the device the user is employing.

34There is certainly a discussion about the digital development of the edition, alongside an explanation of all the choices of the author around it, furthermore, reinstating a paradigm. However, as Kiss was not the one who worked on the technological side – instead, it was a private studio (Woodpecker Software) – there is little to no knowledge about the infrastructure hosting the website, hence limiting the reusability of such a model for other editions.

35This brings the project to be, indeed, digital but at a basic level and with many sectors that could be further improved by all the new standards, models, and practices developed over the years. Although Catullus Online is not digitally perfect, it hopes to be a starting point for the development of further studies on Catullus’ tradition (Kiss 2020, 112-114).

Suggested Future Implementations

36Here are a few suggestions that could help Catullus Online broaden its horizons in the digital realm:

  • Kiss would do well to adapt the edition to the TEI Guidelines to offer a more durable service over time.
  • It would also be an improvement for the edition to allow Catullus Online to be citable through the CTS protocol. It could employ an implementation similar to the one in the Perseus Digital Library, which combines both the CTS system and linked data, starting from an HTML basis (Almas, Babeu, and Krohn, 2014).

37Both the implementation of the TEI Guidelines and the CTS protocol would allow Catullus Online to become further syntactically and semantically interoperable (Kalvemaski 2014), which is something that the project is in part lacking.

  • It would also be a good idea to offer a translation of the poems alongside their text so that this website could be truly employed and consulted by people other than academics (e.g., secondary school students who have yet to form themselves on Latin texts and could use this website to train in such a subject).
  • On this same topic, I would also suggest offering information on Catullus’ life and the history of the manuscripts used. This would be helpful to give a full portrait of the author and the manuscripts used in the section “ABOUT THE REPOSITORY”, which explains the editorial methods behind the choices applied to the text and apparatus, but not the story of the manuscripts.
  • The paper that Dániel Kiss wrote – Catullus Online: A Digital Critical Edition of the Poems of Catullus with a Repertory of Conjectures – could be linked in the above-mentioned section to explain the story behind Catullus’ tradition further.

38A clearer interface would also offer a more accessible tool:

  • The website and the apparatus might benefit from showing one poem at a time instead of all of them at once, allowing the user to zoom in on the specific part of the texts, they are interested in. For this, a drop-down menu where the user could select just the poem they are looking for and its apparatus could be implemented.
  • Another aspect that could be improved is the second search tool, which has been noted to be faulty in the previous paragraph. If fixed, it would prove to be a very helpful and useful tool to observe further unnoticed details in the poems.
  • Aside from a clearer interface, it would also be good to further work on creating a solution for the website not to rely so heavily on its rendering, allowing different methods of consultation that would involve a broader audience. It would, for example, be helpful to create different methods of visualization and allow the users to consult the website offline, as well.

39Finally, I think that Catullus Online could benefit from further working on its responsive design, starting by offering a mobile version of the website that could be more easily accessible to everyday users and not strictly academics, allowing the website to be able to be consulted at any moment.



Notes

[1]  From the Section ABOUT THE WEBSITE in Catullus Online: http://web.archive.org/web/20231215114144/http://www.catullusonline.org/CatullusOnline/index.php?dir=edited_pages&pageID=5.

[2]  R.A.B Mynors, to make sense of the complexity of Catullus’ tradition, recognized eight layers of humanistic corrections and named them after the Greek letters αβγδεζηθ to distinguish them (Kiss 2013, 2017). According to Dániel Kiss, this system proved to be highly problematic due to its inconsistency.


References

Almas, Bridget, Alison Babeu, and Anna Krohn. 2014. “Linked Data in the Perseus Digital Library.” ISAW Papers, 7.3. https://web.archive.org/web/20230731161944/http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/7/almas-babeu-krohn/.

Bertone, Susanna. 2017. Tradizione di Catullo e critica del paratesto Divisiones, titoli e facies del Liber [doctoral thesis], Università di Parma. https://hdl.handle.net/1889/3606.

Biondi, Gilberto, Paolo Mastrandea, Raffaele Perelli, Valeria Viparelli, and Loriano Zurli. 2005. Musisque Deoque. A Digital Archive of Latin Poetry. Accessed December 18, 2023. https://mizar.unive.it/mqdq/public/.

Blackwell, Christoper and Neel Smith, eds. 2014. “The Canonical Text Services protocol, version 5.0.rc.2.” Canonical Text Services protocol specification. https://web.archive.org/web/20230731161428/http://cite-architecture.github.io/cts_spec/.

Kalvesmaki, Joel. 2014. “Canonical References in Electronic Texts: Rationale and Best Practices Issue.” Digital Humanities Quarterly, 8(2). https://web.archive.org/web/20230731161221/http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/8/2/000181/000181.html.

Kiss, Dàniel. 2020. “Catullus Online: A Digital Critical Edition of the Poems of Catullus with a Repertory of Conjectures.” In Digitale Altertumswissenschaften: Thesen und Debatten zu Methoden und Anwendungen, edited by Stylianos Chronopoulos, Felix K. Maier, and Anna Novokhatko, 99-114. Digital Classics Books, 4., Heidelberg: Propylaeum. https://katalog.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/titel/68575399.

Kiss, Dàniel. 2013, 2017. Catullus Online. An Online Repertory of Conjectures on Catullus. Accessed December 18, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230613133050/http://www.catullusonline.org/CatullusOnline/index.php.

Macé, Caroline and Philipp Roelli. 2015. “Apparatus.” Parvum Lexicon Stemmatologicum. https://web.archive.org/web/20220830162314/https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/stemmatology/Apparatus.

Mastronarde, Donald J. 2020. “Curated Data for Textual History: Review of Catullus Online.” In Digitale Altertumswissenschaften: Thesen und Debatten zu Methoden und Anwendungen, edited by Stylianos Chronopoulos, Felix K. Maier, and Anna Novokhatko, 115-118. Digital Classics Books, 4., Heidelberg: Propylaeum. https://katalog.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/titel/68575399.

Nappa, Christopher. 2017. “Review: Catullus Online.” Society for Classical Studies. https://web.archive.org/web/20220502185159/https://classicalstudies.org/scs-blog/christopher-nappa/review-catullus-online.

Sahle, Patrick. 2016. “What is a Scholarly Digital Edition?” In Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, edited by Matthew James Driscoll and Elena Pierazzo, 19-39. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0095.02.

Thompson, Douglas F. S. 1997. Catullus. Toronto: University of Press.


Figures

Fig. 1: Screenshot of the description of manuscript T.

Fig. 2: Screenshot of the description of manuscript 90.

Fig. 3: Screenshot of the apparatus of verse 1 (carmen 1).

Fig. 4: Screenshot of the homepage.

Fig. 5: Screenshot of Show Full Apparatus detail.

Fig. 6: Screenshot of the three main icons.

Fig. 7: Screenshot Search by poems, apparatus, and testimonia option.

Fig. 8: Screenshot Go to the passage (poem and line) option.

Fig. 9: Screenshot of the alphabetic order of the Bibliography section.

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Ethical Code https://ride.i-d-e.de/ethical-code/ 2023-12-11T14:42:22Z Ethical Code Read More »

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RIDE – A Review Journal for Digital Editions and Resources is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal whose policy is inspired by the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Ethical Code (see COPE’s Core Practices for editors, journals, publishers, and institutions). For more information on access, licensing and archiving of the articles in RIDE please see our Publishing Policy. We also provide Guidelines for writing and submitting articles for the authors.

Publisher’s responsibilities  

The Publisher, the Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE), must provide the Journal with adequate resources and the guidance of experts, in order to carry out its role in the most professional way, aiming at the highest quality standard. The tasks of the Publisher are carried out by a group of Managing Editors who are members of the IDE.

The relationship among the Managing Editors, the Editor(s) of the Journal’s issues, the Editorial Board, and the Publisher is based on the principle of publishing independence. Editors should make decisions on which articles to publish based on quality and suitability for readers.

Editors’ responsibilities 

The Editors and the Editorial Board of RIDE alone are responsible for the decision to publish the articles submitted.

Submitted articles, after having been checked for plagiarism, will undergo both internal review by the Editors and external peer review by at least one expert. Final acceptance presumes the implementation of possible amendments, as required by the reviewers and under the supervision of the RIDE Editor(s).

The RIDE Editor(s) and Editorial Board must evaluate each submitted paper in compliance with the Journalʼs policy, i.e. exclusively on the basis of its scholarly content, without discrimination of race, sex, gender, creed, ethnic origin, citizenship, or the scientific, academic, and political position of the Authors.

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If the RIDE Editor(s) and Editorial  Board notice (or receive notifications of) mistakes or inaccuracies, conflict of interest or plagiarism in a published article, they will immediately warn the Author and the Publisher and will undertake the necessary actions to resolve the issue. They will do their best to correct the published content whenever they are informed that it contains scholarly errors or that the authors have committed unethical or illegal acts in connection with their published work. If necessary, they will withdraw the article or publish a recantation.

All complaints are handled in accordance with the guidelines published by the COPE.

Concerns and complaints must be addressed to the following e-mail ride-editors@i-d-e.de. The letter should contain the following information:

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Stylesheet

Authors must follow the Writing Guidelines and Submission Guidelines for Authors as provided on the RIDE website.

No multiple submissions

Authors must explicitly state that their work is original in all its parts and that the submitted paper has not been previously published, nor submitted to other journals, until the entire evaluation process is completed. Since no paper gets published without significant revision, earlier dissemination in conference proceedings or working papers does not preclude consideration for publication, but Authors are expected to fully disclose publication/dissemination of the material in other closely related publications, so that the overlap can be evaluated by the RIDE Editor(s).

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Authors are strongly encouraged to use their ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This will ensure the authors’ visibility and correct citation of their work.

Authorship must be correctly attributed; all those who have given a substantial contribution to the design, organisation and accomplishment of the research the article is based on, must be indicated as Co-Authors. Please ensure that: the order of the author names is correct; the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that affiliations are up-to-date.

The respective roles of each co-author should be described in a footnote when they have contributed  in different ways and to different extents to the publication. All authors should give their written approval for the publication of the article’s final version to the responsible Editor(s).

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Authors, under their own responsibility, must avoid any conflict of interest affecting the results obtained or the interpretations suggested. The RIDE Editor(s) will give serious and careful consideration to suggestions of cases in which, due to possible conflict of interest, an Author’s work should not be reviewed by a specific scholar. Authors should indicate any financing agency or the project the article stems from.

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Reviews in RIDE should generally be done in a fair manner; i.e. criticism should be expressed in a comprehensible and constructive way. The range of advances in digital methodology is broad between different resources and projects. As RIDE in general aims to encourage the use of digital methods and techniques, but also to contribute to the discussion of the state-of-the art in the field, we recommend that the critique expressed in the reviews by the authors takes into account the circumstances of each digital resource and is formulated appropriately.

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Authors must ensure that all works consulted are properly cited. If works or words of others are used, they have to be properly paraphrased or duly quoted. Quotations between “double quotes” (or «angled quotation marks» if the text is written in a language other than English) must reproduce the exact wording of the source; under their own responsibility, Authors should carefully refrain from disguising a restyling of the source’s wording, as though it was the original formulation.

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By means of the peer-review procedure, reviewers assist the RIDE Editor(s) and Editorial  Board in taking decisions on the articles submitted. They are expected to offer the Authors suggestions as to possible adjustments aimed at improving their contribution submission.

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Issue 18: Scholarly Editions https://ride.i-d-e.de/issues/issue-18/ 2023-09-18T06:46:48Z

Editors: Ulrike Henny-Krahmer, Martina Scholger
Managing Editors: Ulrike Henny-Krahmer, Frederike Neuber, Martina Scholger
Published: September 2023 – December 2023

A synergistic approach to non-narrative historical sources. The database and digital edition of the Spängler household account books, 1733–1785

A synergistic approach to non-narrative historical sources. The database and digital edition of the Spängler household account books, 1733–1785

The account books of the Salzburg merchant family Spängler from 1733 to 1785 – digital , Reinhold Reith; Georg Stöger (ed.), 2020. http://spaengler-haushaltsbuecher.at/ (Last Accessed: 21.07.2022). Reviewed by Werner Scheltjens (University of Bamberg), werner.scheltjens@uni-bamberg.de. || Abstract: The household account books of the Salzburg merchant family Spängler cover an exceptionally long period and constitute a unique source for the history of consumption in Central Europe in the eighteenth century. This review assesses the diplomatic and database edition that was published by the University of Salzburg and partners in 2020. The review focuses on the synergies that the ...
Der Sturm

Der Sturm

DER STURM. Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde , Marjam Trautmann, Torsten Schrade, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (ed.), 2018. https://sturm-edition.de/ (Last Accessed: 26.07.2023). Reviewed by Lisa Dieckmann (Universität zu Köln), lisa.dieckmann@uni-koeln.de. || Abstract: This paper reviews the digital edition Der Sturm – Digitale Quellenedition zur Geschichte der internationalen Avantgarde , which aims to bring together all existing digital sources on the STURM company, to make them accessible and to link them with each other. Initiated by Herwarth Walden by founding the STURM magazine for contemporary art, the STURM com...
Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook

Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook

Paolo Bufalini, Appunti (1981-1991) [Edizione scientifica digitale semantica] , Daquino, Marilena, Martina Dello Buono, Francesca Giovannetti, and Francesca Tomasi (ed.), 2020. https://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6415 (Last Accessed: 13.01.2022). Reviewed by Luisa Ammirati (Università di Bologna), luisa.ammirati@studio.unibo.it. || Abstract: Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook (from here on PBN) is a critical edition of the personal notebook that the Italian politician and intellectual Paolo Bufalini held from 1981 to 1991. The edition offers the opportunity to plunge into the flow of thoughts of a man of the twentieth century who reflects on philosophy, poetry, and politics. The methodical go...
Furnace and Fugue. A multimedia edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens

Furnace and Fugue. A multimedia edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens

Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary , Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak (ed.), 2020. https://furnaceandfugue.org/ (Last Accessed: 13.06.2022). Reviewed by Sarah Lang (University of Graz), sarah.lang@uni-graz.at. || Abstract: Furnace and Fugue is a digital edition of Michael Maier’s (1568–1622) opus magnum , the emblem book Atalanta fugiens (1618a ) in which Latin and German texts are paired with images and musical fugues in an enigmatic way to engage users of the book in deep meditation on alchemical subjects. The digital edition of the text itself, including an English translation based on a 17th century manus...
Catullus Online

Catullus Online

Catullus Online , Dàniel Kiss (ed.), 2013. http://www.catullusonline.org/CatullusOnline/index.php?dir=poems (Last Accessed: 14.05.2022). Reviewed by Martina Pensalfini (Università di Bologna), martina.pensalfini@studio.unibo.it. || Abstract: Catullus Online , a collection of the author’s poems and a repository of the conjectures collected through the centuries, was published by Dániel Kiss with the support of the Abteilung für Griechische und Lateinische Philologie of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, in 2013. Kiss faced many difficulties in the creation of such a resource, both from a technical standpoint and from the inner complexity of the philological tradition behind ...

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