This repository contains a digital scholarly edition of a 15th-century letter from Lorenzo de' Medici to his ambassador in Naples, Giovanni de' Lanfredini. The project involves the diplomatic transcription, semantic encoding using the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) standard, and web-based presentation of the manuscript.
This project was developed for the "Codifica di Testi" (Text Encoding) course, part of the Digital Humanities curriculum at the University of Pisa (UniPi).
- Project Goal: From Manuscript to Digital Edition
- The Manuscript: A Glimpse into Medici Diplomacy
- The TEI Encoding Model
- Technical Stack & Digital Philology Workflow
- Repository Structure
- How to View the Digital Edition
- Author
The primary objective of this project is to apply the methodologies of digital philology to a historical document. We aim to create a rich, machine-readable digital edition that is both a faithful representation of the original manuscript and a flexible resource for scholarly research.
The key goals are:
- Diplomatic Transcription: To accurately transcribe the text of the letter, preserving original spellings, abbreviations, and other paleographic features.
- Semantic Encoding: To enrich the plain text with a layer of semantic information using TEI XML, identifying entities like people, places, dates, and philological phenomena.
- Validation and Consistency: To ensure the formal correctness of the encoding against the official TEI schema.
- Web Presentation: To transform the encoded XML into a human-readable HTML format for consultation and study, linking the transcription to the original manuscript facsimiles.
- Document: Letter (minuta) from Lorenzo de' Medici.
- Recipient: Giovanni de' Lanfredini, Florentine ambassador at the Aragonese court in Naples.
- Date: 29 December 1485.
- Archive: Archivio di Stato di Firenze.
- Significance: The letter is a valuable primary source offering insights into the complex political and diplomatic relations between Florence and the Kingdom of Naples during a period of high tension, marked by the Congiura dei Baroni (Conspiracy of the Barons).
The project includes high-resolution scans of the four pages of the manuscript, which serve as the basis for the transcription and encoding.
The core of the project is the LL1_7.xml file, which contains the TEI-compliant transcription. We adopted a detailed encoding model to capture various textual phenomena:
- Header (
<teiHeader>): Contains extensive metadata about the document, including its origin, authorship, a physical description of the manuscript, and details about the encoding process itself. - Facsimiles (
<facsimile>): Links the digital text to the manuscript scans, defining "zones" on each image that correspond to specific lines of text. - Textual Body (
<text>):- Structural Elements: The letter is structured using
<opener>,<body>, and<closer>. Paragraphs are marked with<p>and line breaks with<lb/>. - Named Entities: People (
<persName>), places (<placeName>), and dates (<date>) are tagged to enable structured data extraction. - Paleographic and Editorial Features:
- Abbreviations: Marked with
<abbr>(the abbreviated form) and<expan>(the expanded, interpreted form). - Deletions and Additions: Text struck by the author is tagged with
<del>, while interlinear or marginal additions are marked with<add>. - Unclear Text: Passages that are difficult to read are marked with
<unclear>.
- Abbreviations: Marked with
- Structural Elements: The letter is structured using
This project utilizes standard technologies from the Digital Humanities for creating scholarly editions.
- Encoding Language: XML (eXtensible Markup Language).
- Encoding Standard: TEI P5 (Text Encoding Initiative). This is the de-facto standard for representing historical and literary texts in a digital format.
- Schema and Validation: DTD (Document Type Definition). The
tei_all.dtdfile is used to validate the XML against the TEI guidelines, ensuring its structural correctness. - Transformation Language: XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations). The
LL1_7.xslstylesheet contains the rules to transform the semantic XML into a presentational HTML file. - Presentation: HTML5 and CSS3. The final output is a web page styled with CSS for readability.
Manuscript Scans → Diplomatic Transcription → TEI XML Encoding (.xml) → XSLT Transformation (.xsl) → Web Publication (.html + .css)
.
├── Progetto/
│ ├── LL1\_7.xml \# The main TEI-encoded XML file
│ ├── LL1\_7.xsl \# The XSLT stylesheet for HTML transformation
│ ├── LL1\_7.html \# The final, generated HTML output
│ ├── style.css \# CSS file for styling the HTML output
│ ├── tei\_all.dtd \# The TEI DTD for validation
│ ├── trascrizione.pdf \# A PDF document with transcription criteria
│ └── Scans/ \# Directory containing the manuscript images
│ ├── LL1.7\_0001.jpg
│ └── ...
└── Esercizi/ \# Directory with preliminary exercises on XML/DTD
There are two ways to view the project:
-
View the Final HTML (Easiest Method):
- Simply open the
Progetto/LL1_7.htmlfile in any modern web browser. This is the pre-generated final version of the digital edition.
- Simply open the
-
Perform the XML to HTML Transformation (Advanced):
- To see the transformation process in action, you need an XML editor or a transformation tool (like Saxon or the built-in tools in oXygen XML Editor).
- Open the
Progetto/LL1_7.xmlfile. - Apply the
Progetto/LL1_7.xslstylesheet to it. - This will generate a new HTML file, equivalent to the one already present in the repository.
- Daniele Borghesi