Buon giorno bloggatori!

We have divided our overall work into three parts:

• the encoding and the annotation of a single large section of Villani’s “Cronica”,
• the creation of a series of thematic “showcases” which collect annotated excerpts from the “Cronica” which would be useful to both students and scholars (possible themes include natural disasters, omens and portents, the florentine economy, Villani’s use of evidence, foreign lands, etc.),
• the English translation of the above.

For now we will be focusing on the first of these three parts. We’ve finally learned how to use XML and we are beginning to work on the encoding. We’ve decided to begin our work on the final book (book 13 in some editions and 12 in others).

In our discussions with each other and with Vika we decided to focus our initial attention on three areas of encoding. The first area involves the textual and temporal breaks—book, chapters, rubrics and dates—whose encoding will help us learn the ropes. The second area is thematic. The final book of Villani—especially the initial chapters—is much involved with the phenomenon of the “signore”. We are planning to encode in such a way as to bring into relief Villani’s preoccupation with this phenomenon. Ideally users should be able to search for passages treating “tyrannical” government—its rise, its installation, its actions, its judgment by the Florentine Villani.

We’ll then move to persons in Villani’s text. Here the attributes should be few initially—we’ll add more as we proceed. Of course choosing these attributes is painful…it seems to involve a tremendous amount of highly problematic simplification. I would welcome any comments. We might characterize people:

• as “real” or “mythical” in the manner of Roberto’s encoding;
• by their place or origin, their dwelling place or their citizenship;
• by the vision Villani has of their social status (if this is relatively clear);
• by the political role they fill at any given moment in the text (”official” roles like the priorate or “unofficial” roles like that of a faction leader).

We should mention that we were lucky enough to win a berth at the Kalamazoo conference in a special session on “Text and Image in Digital Scholarship” to present our component of the project.

-Matt and Rala