The Palaeographical Method under the Light of a Digital Approach

Ciula, Arianna (2009) The Palaeographical Method under the Light of a Digital Approach. In: Kodikologie und Paläographie im digitalen Zeitalter - Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age. Schriften des Instituts für Dokumentologie und Editorik, 2. BoD, Norderstedt, pp. 219-235. ISBN 978-3-8370-9842-6

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Abstract

This paper has the twofold aim of reflecting upon a humanities computing approach to palaeography, and of making such reflections - together with its related experimental results - fruitful at the implementation level. Firstly, the paper explores the methodological issues related to the use of a digital tool to support the palaeographical analysis of medieval handwriting. It claims that humanities computing methods can assist in making explicit those processes of the palaeographical research that encompass detailed analyses, in particular of the handwriting and, more generally, of other idiosyncratic features of written cultural artefacts. Thus, palaeographical tools are to be contextualised and used within a broader methodological framework where their role is to mediate the vision, the comparison, the representation, the analysis and the interpretation of these objects. Secondly, the paper attempts to evaluate the experimentations carried out with a specific software and, in so doing, to test a humanities computing approach to palaeography at a practical level, so as to direct future implementations. Some of these implementations have already been carried out by the current developers of the application in question with whom the author collaborates closely, while others are still in progress and in need of future iterative refinements.

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