From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the age of its digital reproduction
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/11459
I progetti di edizione scientifica digitale (DSE) degli ultimi anni valorizzano il ruolo del facsimile digitale, ormai diventato una componente standard e indispensabile dell’edizione. Questo è il risultato di una nota discussione, iniziata con una critica alla teoria e alla pratica editoriale tradizionali e con l’urgenza di rivalutare la dimensione materiale e storica dei testi. Nel frattempo, i grandi progetti di digitalizzazione delle istituzioni GLAM hanno prodotto un proliferare di fonti primarie e hanno visto la luce anche i primi tentativi editoriali di sfruttare le possibilità offerte dal facsimile. I surrogati digitali vengono integrati nei progetti di edizione in modi diversi: spesso sono gestiti come del materiale ‘accessorio’ oppure, più comunemente, come dati ‘aggiuntivi’ delle DSE. Nonostante molte edizioni siano ancora incentrate sul testo, in pochi casi ma degni di nota le immagini digitali possono diventare una parte ‘costitutiva’ di un progetto. Ciò si verifica anche grazie all’impegno verso la standardizzazione (TEI, IIIF) che ha portato alla creazione di nuove forme editoriali imperniate sulle potenzialità del facsimile: paradossalmente, più le edizioni sono diventate immateriali, più sembrano in grado di focalizzarsi sulla qualità materiale dei testi. Questo articolo mira a sondare ragioni e finalità di questa svolta materiale attraverso una serie di esempi da progetti di edizione.
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Umanistica Digitale
Manuscript Studies
From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the age of its digital reproduction
Text.Serial.Journal
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Articles
2020-12-31
2020-08-14
2020-12-31
2021-04-01
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Um. Dig.
Anna Cappellotto
2020/12/31
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/11459
1
University of Verona
2532-8816
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Manuscript Studies
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• VisColl: https://github.com/KislakCenter/VisColl
From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the age of its digital reproduction
https://umanisticadigitale.unibo.it/article/view/11459/11875
    Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.9, 2020
A. Cappellotto – From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the age of its digital
reproduction
DOI: http://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/11459


   From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the
             age of its digital reproduction

                                            Anna Cappellotto

                                            Unversità di Verona
                                    anna.cappellotto@univr.it


       Abstract

       Scholarly digital edition (DSE) projects of the last few years have enhanced the role of the
       digital facsimile as a standard and necessary part of the edition. This is the result of a
       well-known discussion, which started with the questioning of traditional editorial theory
       and practice and led to the need to reassess the material and historical dimension of texts.
       In the meantime, big GLAMs’ digitization projects produced a proliferation of primary
       sources and the first attempts to exploit the digital facsimile in DSEs saw daylight.
       Manuscript surrogates can be integrated in different ways in edition projects: often
       handled as merely ‘accessory’ materials, they generally function as ‘additional’, i.e.
       enriching, components of the DSEs. Although most editions are still text-centred, in few
       but very remarkable cases digital images can become a truly ‘constitutive’ part of a
       project. This happens thanks to standardization efforts (TEI, IIIF) resulting in new forms
       of editing that revolve around the potentiality of digital manuscripts: paradoxically, the
       more immaterial the edition becomes, the more it seems to be able to focus on the
       material quality of texts. This article seeks to investigate the reasons and purposes of the
       material shift by providing a series of examples from edition projects.
       I progetti di edizione scientifica digitale (DSE) degli ultimi anni valorizzano il ruolo del
       facsimile digitale, ormai diventato una componente standard e indispensabile
       dell’edizione. Questo è il risultato di una nota discussione, iniziata con una critica alla
       teoria e alla pratica editoriale tradizionali e con l’urgenza di rivalutare la dimensione
       materiale e storica dei testi. Nel frattempo, i grandi progetti di digitalizzazione delle
       istituzioni GLAM hanno prodotto un proliferare di fonti primarie e hanno visto la luce
       anche i primi tentativi editoriali di sfruttare le possibilità offerte dal facsimile. I surrogati
       digitali vengono integrati nei progetti di edizione in modi diversi: spesso sono gestiti
       come del materiale ‘accessorio’ oppure, più comunemente, come dati ‘aggiuntivi’ delle
       DSE. Nonostante molte edizioni siano ancora incentrate sul testo, in pochi casi ma degni
       di nota le immagini digitali possono diventare una parte ‘costitutiva’ di un progetto. Ciò
       si verifica anche grazie all’impegno verso la standardizzazione (TEI, IIIF) che ha portato
       alla creazione di nuove forme editoriali imperniate sulle potenzialità del facsimile:
       paradossalmente, più le edizioni sono diventate immateriali, più sembrano in grado di
       focalizzarsi sulla qualità materiale dei testi. Questo articolo mira a sondare ragioni e


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     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.9, 2020

        finalità di questa svolta materiale attraverso una serie di esempi da progetti di edizione.



        Material perspectives on texts

Digital scholarly editing seems more than ever focused on the materiality of texts, which has
become a crucial aspect both in the process of creation and in the moment of fruition of an
edition. In Robinson’s words, the primacy of the document in digital scholarly editing is due to
three main reasons. First, the availability of the material documents in the immaterial digital
medium has led to questioning of notions like text and document with profound consequences
on editorial theory and practice. Second, the edition of documents has been facilitated by the
abundance of digital images. Third, in the new medium editor and user can be involved in the
study, analysis and exploitation of documents as never before ([34], 109). But what do we
mean exactly by the materiality of texts? How can documents be integrated in an edition and
with what consequences to both the theory and process of editing and the user’s experience?


        The (medieval) text as a wheel
For the purpose of analysis, it is useful to start with Sahle’s Textrad or ‘text wheel’ ([36], 45-48).
This often-quoted text model was developed to outline the possible perspectives on a text from
the standpoint of digital scholarly editing. Sahle’s proposed pluralistic model tries to arrange in
a circle the textual focuses an editor can have when creating an edition. For example, does the
editor aim at reproducing the text of a work or the text of a document, or both? 1 The six spokes
contained in the wheel can be seen as a way to conceptualize the passage from the one-text
model, typical of print culture, where an edition could offer only a single text (diplomatic or
critical or whatever) to a pluralistic text model, typical of digital editing, where more than one
text can be presented simultaneously in the edition (diplomatic and critical or whatever).
Although this model is non-hierarchical, three core textual dimensions can be recognized: these
are Text I (idea), Text S (language), Text D (document). One can say that these correspond to a
pre-scholarly notion of text, according to which an idea is expressed through the written
language in a document.




1   On this topic see also [30], chap. 2, par. 2.


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Figure 1: Patrick Sahle's text wheel (Sahle 2013, 47)

It is interesting that out of six postulated dimensions (text I = idea, W = work, S = language, F =
version, D = document, Z = sign), three of them are bound, at different levels, to the
materiality of a text: F, D, Z. Applying a document perspective (D) on a text means to
recognize that texts are material objects with a visual character (there is actually no text without
a document) and that each document (and consequently each text) differs from other
documents. This is proven also by the fact that, if the outer form of a text is changed, as a result
the meaning construction is altered too ([36], 28). Inside the wheel, the text as a document (D)
is embedded between the view of a text as a version (F) and as a sign (Z). A version (F) derives
from the linguistic dimension of a text (S), but is fixated in its documentary evidence (D): any
variation in language expression produces a different text version necessarily preserved in a
document. To see a text as a (visual) sign (Z) is interesting because this perspective is placed
after the documentary (D) and before the ideal (I) manifestations of a text, that is between a
very material and a very abstract dimension. Indeed, there are several cases in which the
intention, content, or meaning of a text are produced through the (visual) signs carried by the
document, e.g. concrete poetry, medieval charters or contemporary postcards.2 The difference
between the text as a document and the text as a sign is basically a perceptive one: the
document bears material features, the interpretation of which by the reader creates ideas,
intentions and meanings.
Compared to textuality in general, medieval textuality requires some more clarifications on the
categories connected to the material dimensions of a text (F, D, Z). Text as version (F) is in
need of further explanation, because in medieval philology there are two similar expressions,
that is version and redaction: the threshold between a text version and a text redaction (Ger.
Fassung, It. recensione) is that the former mainly concerns textual variants in the strict sense of
philological usage, whereas in the latter case the same work is recognizable under a significantly
different linguistic expression. This is how Bumke defined the concept of Fassung in his
research on the Nibelungenlied. To him, the versions of a work vary so much that the

2   On the semantics of the page see [4].

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differences cannot be accidental, in fact they have to be seen as the result of somebody’s
intention of reconfiguring the text ([5], 32). In the Middle Ages a text can be handed down in
more redactions, any of which can be transmitted by one or more witnesses displaying a higher
or lower degree of textual variation. 3 It is true that no manuscript is perfectly identical to
another (and as a consequence any text D is a different text), but despite possible variations one
cannot say that each manuscript necessarily bears a different text. As for documentary (D) and
visual (Z) perspectives on texts, they are fundamental in medieval manuscript culture. Often
aspects connected to the merely documentary dimension, such as the size of a manuscript,
layout, writing, presence of decorations, annotations or glosses function as codified visual signs
(Z) which produce the ideal (I) dimension of a text in a specific context. This is not to mention
manuscripts which display a substantial interaction between word and image, sometimes in
very creative ways. In those cases the visual dimension of the document plays an essential role
in both the creation of a text and its reception, and qualifies as a challenge for digital scholarly
editing, as will be demonstrated below.


        Codex and context in scholarly editing

In a very influential publication, Busby ([6]) complained the neglect of codicology in the
scholarly study of old French narrative. By means of sound arguments he invites all his
medievalist colleagues to stick to the nature of the physical artefact, as it can open up the social
dimension of a text, which otherwise could not be tackled ([6], 58):


        For the production of the manuscript determines in large part the reception of the text or
        texts it contains in the Middle Ages and its transmission to us. The professional of the
        book trade manipulated the response of medieval listeners and readers just as modern
        editors are capable of manipulating ours by the presentation of texts in a particular way.

This is the reason why reading a text in modern printed editions is completely different and
somehow misleading compared with reading a text in manuscripts ([6], 3). Just like medieval
book professionals could intervene in the perception of a text by altering its physical nature,
modern editors of medieval texts can influence the reception by editing texts in different ways.
This is not to say that editions are useless, rather that it is necessary to bring scholars’ attention
back to the codicological and palaeographic dimension of texts, which for a long time had been
absent or considered a secondary aspect in editing medieval literature. And yet codicology and
palaeography have extensively profited from the availability of digital images and from
technological developments. Since the early 2000s palaeography has become ‘digital’ and in this
context projects such as DigiPal ([11]) have dramatically contributed to the exploitation of
digital methods for the study of ancient scripts through the digital facsimile. Codicology also
provided digital solutions for representing specific material aspects of books (cf. [7]): a tool
such as VisColl (https://viscoll.org/), developed for visualizing quires and binding structure

3   There are many examples: Pfaffe Lamprecht’s Alexanderlied (1150 ca.), for instance, is handed down
    in three different redactions (V, S, B) each one handed down in one manuscript only.


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                                                                                 reproduction

according to XML/TEI standards, can be easily integrated in digital edition projects and is a
good example of an attempt to rejoin the textual and the material dimension.


       The digital facsimile and the digital edition
This material shift in the study of medieval texts is the latest development of a profound and
well-known discussion within traditional editorial theory which culminated in the 90s with the
findings of so-called material or new philology. Within this approach, a more idealistic and
neoplatonic perspective on medieval texts was gradually combined with a reassessment of the
history of tradition ([27]). This ultimately developed into the idea of text fluidity (mouvance),
not only with respect to the supposed text authors (quite a hazy concept in the Middle Ages),
but also towards readers and editors ([14], 63). Consequently, textual scholars started to feel
the urgency to read unstable medieval texts in the context in which they belong, that is in
manuscript culture, and to think about forms of scholarly editing that could mirror this newly
acknowledged textual status.
The need to enhance the value of single witnesses within a manuscript tradition produced a
revival of all those editorial endeavours where the material dimension of a text was at the
centre. This includes diplomatic, ultra-diplomatic and genetic editions, and the exploration
and development of new approaches thanks to the digital transformation in scholarly editing.
Indeed, in the same period this process was fostered by the huge digitization initiatives by the
GLAMs, which enabled scholars to access an incredible number of primary sources
proliferating on the web. The availability of facsimiles favoured the study of manuscripts and
moved it from the margins of scholarship to the centre of academic (and non-academic) trends
([21], 54).4 In 2003 Hockey even talked about the production of digital images as a new kind
of “digital fever”: images alone, however, do not amount to much, if they are not accompanied
by contextual materials in order to be referenced and employed in a productive way ([18], 51-
53).


       Some (discouraging) data
And yet often the presence of digital surrogates simply functions as additional material and
does not really make a difference in the editorial experience, from both the creator’s and the
user’s perspective. The presentation of a facsimile in a digital edition project has surely become
an unavoidable standard to such a degree that if it is not available, editors are supposed to
justify its absence. In this context it is worth deriving some useful data from Franzini’s
Catalogue of Digital Editions (CDE), which offers a good and quite detailed survey on the
different parameters concerning the presentation of images in current digital edition projects
(both scholarly and not, [16]; [2]):




4   The acronym GLAM is currently used to refer to Galeries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums.

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 Category       Description                         Yes    No       Partially       No information
                                                                                    provided
 Images         The project comes with              165    106      26              12
                (high definition) images
 Zoomable       Projects providing zoomable         142    152      -               15
 images         images
 Image          Projects providing the option       15     276      -               18
 manipulat      to manipulate images (e.g.
 ion            rotation, brightness, etc.)
 Text-          Projects providing text-image       15     273      3               18
 image          linking
 linking
Table 1: facsimile functionalities in DSE projects (CDE, last access: 2020-08-10)


The data contained in the table above refers to a total amount of 309 editions (out of which 85
cover the Middle Ages and 90 the Early Modern Period). Evidence shows that the most
common functionality concerning digital surrogates is image zooming, available in about 50%
of the editions. Conversely, more advanced functionalities such as image manipulation and
text-image linking represent only about the 5% of the total amount and therefore are still an
exception.
By browsing the editions listed in the catalogue one can see that, despite the effort of creating
high resolution and standardized formats of digitized manuscripts, there is still a lot of work to
do in trying to find effective ways to integrate the facsimile in digital edition projects. Indeed,
few projects make the digital facsimile the core of the edition and exploit the current
possibilities of image annotation and presentation. Even in those cases where the need of a
digital edition arises from the uniqueness of one single document, it is not common to find
projects which focus on the truly physical nature of the text and consider it an integral part of
the edition.
Things are slightly different but no less varied in the edition of modern authors. In the Jane
Austen Fiction Manuscripts project, for instance, the facsimile and the diplomatic transcription
appear side by side and the documentary focus offered in the project has resulted in opening up
Austen’s writing habits and consequently in producing novel hermeneutic assumptions about
her poetics ([31], 13-22). In the Nietzsche Source the edition of the philosopher’s literary
remains appears as two separated resources. The first is the Digitale Faksimile Gesamtausgabe
(DFGA), a facsimile edition of the whole estate in high-resolution images which can be
browsed, enlarged, printed, downloaded, and properly quoted. The other is the Digitale
Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe – eKGWB, according to the editor “the most
corrected version of the Colli/Montinari critical edition” ([12], 42). Although images are stored
in a different section of the edition, their quality and presentation allow for quite a high degree
of exploitation. The Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project displays text and image


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                                                                                 reproduction

alignment as well as image annotation in advanced presentation and browsing functionalities
(see for instance Krapp’s last tape demo, [43]). The Proust Prototype is about a genetic edition of
Proust’s notebook 46: here writing and transcription can be simultaneously visualized on the
document through different paths. Although the prototype represents just a preliminary work
to the edition of Proust’s manuscripts, it is undoubtedly relevant for the central role the digital
facsimile plays. Indeed, the transcription is not placed at one side of the document as usual, but
it emerges directly from the identification of surfaces and zones in the document according to
the user’s need to follow writing or reading sequences in a dynamic model ([1], 54).


        Levels of document integration

Remarkable efforts have been made to create standards for the annotation of digital images and
for the improvement of image interoperability. One of the most significant developments was
surely carried out by the TEI, through the creation of a module for facsimile annotation and
for image and text alignment in 2011. This allowed for a thorough representation of the
facsimile in the digital edition (through the <facsimile> module) and the connection between
this annotation and the text transcription (see TEI P5, [40]). According to Pierazzo, this had a
crucial effect on the idea of text, “breaking de facto with the idea implied by the OHCO that
only structural and immaterial features determine ‘what texts really are’” ([30], 84).5
As concerns image standards, a huge standardization attempt is the International Image
Interoperability Framework (IIIF), an initiative driven by the GLAM community that can be
defined as an “interoperable technology and community framework for image delivery”. 6 IIIF
promotes access to resources hosted around the world, defines APIs to support interoperability
between repositories, and aims at the creation of shared technologies to work with images. A
possible integration between IIIF and TEI annotation is being currently addressed by scholars
working on the development of DH projects, although they claim that integration is still at an
experimental stage ([24], 151):


        The TEI approach has always been text-centric, and only more recently the TEI editors
        have included a document-based approach in which the digital images of a textual source
        have equal dignity as its textual representation, via the <facsimile> / <surface> / <zone>
        encoding approach. On the other hand, IIIF is overtly and intentionally image-based.
        The TEI/IIIF integration thus looks very promising and productive for DSEs aiming to
        combine textual representation and digital images. However, at this point this is very
        much an open field of experimentation.

It is now worth taking a closer look to the DSEs dealing with the medieval period: out of 85
projects listed in the catalogue, 49 display digital facsimiles, but they are employed in quite

5   OHCO = Ordered Hierarchy of Content Objects.
6   International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) - home page: https://iiif.io/about/ (last access:
    2020-08-10).

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different ways. The first kind of integration is what one could define as merely ‘accessory’: this
means that digital surrogates are part of the material available in the edition, but there is no
actual focus on it. A more advanced exploitation of images is linked to functionalities like
zooming and manipulation and is what I would call ‘additional’: images usually appear next to
the transcriptions, even though the two levels of text representation do not really interplay.
There is a third ‘constitutive’ way to make use of the facsimile in a DSE, which occurs when
digital surrogates of the document and text transcription are combined in producing the text at
a more substantial level.
Traditional editorial practice has produced several kinds of editions focused on the levels of
reproduction of the source, among which we have the so-called facsimile or archive edition, the
various degrees of diplomatic i.e. documentary edition ([28]; [29]) – ultra-diplomatic,
diplomatic, and semi-diplomatic – and the synoptic or genetic editions. 7 Pioneering genetic
editions both in analogue and digital form gave impulse to a rethinking of editorial theory and
practice focused on the documentary evidence of a text. However, genetic editions are not really
suitable for editing medieval texts, because it is almost impossible to identify the process of
creation and texts are usually characterized by a so-called Autorferne, that is an unbridgeable
distance between the moment of creation of a text and its concrete appearance in manuscript
culture. Or, from another perspective: in medieval manuscript culture the process of creation
only stops when the act of copying manuscripts is finished.


       Accessory, additional, and constitutive facsimile
An example of ‘accessory’ integration is Christine de Pizan. The Making of the Queen’s
Manuscript. This project is centred on London, British Library, Harley MS 4431 (dated 1414),
a codex of the largest surviving collected manuscript of Christine de Pizan’s works (1365-
ca.1431).8 The editorial goals are on the one side to study the place of the manuscript in
Christine’s works and coeval book production and on the other side to investigate the language
of the text (through glossary and OCP concordance). Christine supervised all material aspects
connected with the making of the book, such as the copy, the decoration, and the correction.
Even though the edition is focused on a single witness bearing a high degree of authorial
intervention, the images are unfortunately separated from the transcriptions. As a result, this
produces a shift also in the user fruition of the edition, which is still mainly centred on the text
to the detriment of the document analysis. Another project belonging more or less to the same
years is the edition of the Auchinleck Manuscript (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland,
Adv MS 19.2.1, dated 1330s), one of greatest treasures for the study of the English language
and literature, as it hands down many unique texts (or unique versions of texts). This edition
displays a higher level of integration of the digital facsimile, which can be opened at need
through hypermedia links and placed next to the transcriptions. However, despite the

7   For the various nuances that a diplomatic edition can have browse the Medieval Nordic Text Archive
    (MENOTA) – Public catalogue: http://clarino.uib.no/menota/catalogue [22] (last access: 2020-08-10).
For a more theoretical perspective see [17].
8 Christine de Pizan: The Making of the Queen’s Manuscript (London, British Library, Harley MS 4431):
    http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/ [9] (last access: 2020-08-10).


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                                                                                 reproduction

uniqueness of the document it is based on, the user experience is again focused on the text and
the facsimile remains a secondary feature of the edition.9
In most cases the digital surrogate of a manuscript appears next to the transcriptions, with the
purpose to enable the user to orient her-/himself in the manuscript and to check editorial
decisions directly against the document. As Schillingsburg pointed out, transcriptions are
useful, but no textual scholar would be happy to rely only on them, for s/he would not be able
to verify the text. Transcriptions without images demand an act of faith, whereas transcriptions
with images rely on verifiable trust ([37], 74). This is the current standard form of the edition
and the quotable examples where the facsimile plays an ‘additional’ role are several. In this
context I would like to mention the Armer Heinrich Digital (2008), an outstanding DSE
project which displays a higher level of enhancement of the digital facsimile. The history of
tradition of this text consists of few manuscripts and fragments and “all sources display a
comparatively high degree of text variation, including numerous verse switches, reductions,
additions and alterations” ([15]). Because it is not possible to identify with any certainty which
version of the text is closer to the original, the editors opted for a synoptic display of all extant
documents and transcriptions and for the possibility to check the text against the facsimile,
which can be opened alternatively to the text.
But the first pioneering project about medieval literature entirely centred on the material
dimension of the text is certainly the Electronic Beowulf now at version 4.0 ([20]). It is not an
exaggeration to state that this document-centred edition has changed the parameters of digital
scholarly editing by virtue of the fact that the role of the facsimile is truly ‘constitutive’. The
edition is addressed to a wide audience including the public at large or students of English
(which was the primum movens of a Beowulf electronic edition), 10 and scholars who can access
the critical apparatus. The relevant shift provided by this project is that not only do
transcription and high-resolution images appear side-by-side by default, but also that each
image is endowed with highlighted areas (hotspots) leading to further critical commentary
directly on the surface of the digital document.
Following the Electronic Beowulf more editions started to be conceived in a similar way. This
tendency was promoted not only by this very inspiring project, but also by the easier
availability of digital facsimiles. Another relevant point for the increasing number of digital
editions based on the facsimile has been the creation of pieces of open source software enabling
editors to publish good quality editions, usually in a reasonable amount of time and with
moderate resources. Indeed, a recent tendency in digital scholarly editing is to make a clear
distinction between projects with an experimental ambition, usually big undertakings with a
significant investment in terms of human and financial resources and long-term editorial goals,
and smaller projects usually managed by small teams aiming at publishing good quality
editions without experimental features, but complying with current scholarly standards ([21],
chap. 5, par. 4).


9 The Auchinleck Manuscript: https://auchinleck.nls.uk/index.html [41] (last access: 2020-08-10).
10 See Conner’s ([10]) Beowulf workstation.

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Open source solutions like Versioning Machine 5.0 or Edition Visualization Technology (EVT)
allow the relatively quick publication of XML/TEI files and the possibility to customize the
edition according to specific needs. 11 EVT, which was largely inspired by Kiernan’s project,
offers two versions: EVT 1 (now at version 1.3 released in December 2019) is suitable for
editions displaying an annotated facsimile next to more levels transcriptions (usually diplomatic
and interpretative); moreover, it allows a thorough exploitation of the digital surrogate thanks
to the possibility of image manipulation, hotspots, or the functionality of image-text alignment
achieved through the annotation according to TEI standards. In addition, it includes the
visualization of the manuscript collation thanks to the integration of VisColl. 12 EVT 2 is more
centred on the publication of critical editions, but the software also allows the presentation of
diplomatic or semi-interpretative editions (single manuscript or synoptic visualization), as well
the presentation of the material structure of the document. EVT can handle both facsimiles
stored locally or IIIF images stored on the server of institutional repositories all over the world,
and even 3D models of cultural artefacts, as in the case of the Ruthwell Cross.13 Born as a DH
pedagogical initiative in the bachelor for DH at the University of Pisa by Rosselli del Turco for
the presentation of the old English Vercelli Book (Vercelli, Biblioteca e Archivio Capitolare, ms
CXVII), this software is still evolving through its increasing employment in scholarly edition
projects, which has made it into a kind of standard for publication.
As for critical editions, although their main goal is the creation of a critical text, it is now
common practice to make all the transcriptions available, as the statement of Robinson’s
Canterbury Tales Project makes clear: “Electronic transcription of all the manuscripts and early
printed versions of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, thus providing clues as to the textual
tradition of the poem”.14 This project requires the integration of all the sources at the base of
the edition also because transcriptions are handled by software for automatic collation and for
producing phylogenetic trees ([3]). A similar pioneering editorial undertaking is the Parzival
Project. Wolfram’s Parzival, a best-seller of Middle High German literature, is handed down in
16 medieval manuscripts, more than 70 fragments, and a print dating from 1477. In this
project the editorial perspective on the text is double and for Stolz, the editor in chief, the
project represents both New Philology and New Phylogeny. It means that, on the one hand,
editors focus on both the instability of medieval texts – that is on the enhancement of single
witnesses – and manuscripts interrelations and groupings for the construction of a critical
text:15


11 Home page Versioning machine 5.0: http://v-machine.org/ [44] (last access: 2020-08-10). Home page
   Edition Visualization Technology - EVT 1.3 and EVT 2: http://evt.labcd.unipi.it/ [13] (last access:
   2020-08-10). On EVT 2 see [35].
12 For more information on VisColl see: https://github.com/KislakCenter/VisColl [45] (last access:
   2020-08-10). See also [32].
13 The Ruthwell Cross: http://evt.labcd.unipi.it/demo/evt2-beta2/rc/#/tdhop?
   d=doc_1&s=RC_ES&e=critical [42] (last access: 2020-08-10).
14 The Canterbury Tales Project: https://www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/canterbury-tales/ [8] (last access: 2020-
   08-10).
15 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival. A New Critical Electronic Edition:
   http://www.parzival.unibe.ch/englishpresentation.html (last access: 2020-08-10).


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          A. Cappellotto – From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the age of its digital
                                                                                 reproduction

       A new critical edition of Parzival will have to come to terms with the abundance of
       variant readings and the not inconsiderable problems of establishing a text against the
       methodological background of the polarity of New Philology and New Phylogeny […]
       Thus digital display enables a synthesis of philological positions, which might at first
       sight appear contradictory.



       Editing illustrated manuscripts
Far from being exhaustive, the examples mentioned above provide an idea of how the digital
facsimile can be employed and exploited in DSEs. In this context, however, there is surely
another typology of medieval documents which needs to be considered ([30], 59). There are
numerous examples of texts of which the idea, content and meaning is primarily produced by
the visual features of the document. These are texts that carry a very strong visual rhetoric and
for this reason need a specific form of editorial endeavour capable of doing justice to their
complex multimodal nature ([36], 42). Although one could think that this kind of ‘material
textuality’ belongs to the modern or contemporary times, there is a huge number of examples
from the Middle Ages. For instance, Hrabanus Maurus’s Liber de Laudibus Sanctae Crucis in
Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 652 (9th century, Fulda), contains a series of carmina figurata in which two
semiotic levels are combined with each other, as in the following example:




         Figure 2: Wien, Österreichische                   Figure 3: Tomas Anshelm, Magnencii
         Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 652, page                Rabani Mauri (Pforzheim 1503)
         22

The question of how to edit such documents is not a new one and often occurs. The editio
princeps of the Fuldan codex above was prepared by the theologian and humanist Jakob
Wimpfeling (1450-1598) and was printed in Pforzheim by Thomas Anshelm in 1503 with the
title Magnencii Rabani Mauri. De laudibus sancte Crucis opus. erudicione versu prosaque
mirificum. It is interesting to notice that the editor reproduced the text as it was in the original


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     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.9, 2020

document: I believe that this is a good example to help us understand that, when confronted by
documents like this, it is almost impossible to create an edition which does not take into
account the material dimension of the text. Where exactly does the boundary between the two
different semiotic expressions lie, given that letters become images and images bear text? How
is it possible to extract the text from the document without a loss in intention, idea and
meaning? It is difficult to state what is the best way to envisage good editions based on this
kind of source, but surely none of the traditional solutions, except maybe for the facsimile
edition – in so far as a facsimile edition is considered an edition in its own right – seem to
provide a satisfactory manner.16
There are many other cases in which texts are handed down in manuscripts along with
iconographic cycles, which is quite a common practice also in the book culture starting from
the 13th century. In this respect I would like to mention only what I consider to be the best
example of an edition which combines critical work on the text with an effective exploitation of
the documents: the Welscher Gast Digital ([39]). This is an edition project focused on the work
of philologists and art historians for creating the digital scholarly edition of a 13 th-century
didactic treatise by Thomasin von Zerklaere. The peculiarity of the manuscript tradition is that
many witnesses display a quite stable iconographic apparatus envisaged by Thomasin from the
very beginning. Editorial goals include the creation of a new critical text and the critical
analysis of the iconographic apparatuses of all the witnesses. The project, an interdisciplinary
undertaking between Middle High German and Art History scholars, is based on the
combination between image criticism and textual criticism. As illustrations are a constitutive part
of the documents, it is useful to treat image variants in the same manner as textual variants, in
order to be able to compare witnesses and to identify analogies and differences in the whole
tradition ([39]). This double critical endeavour is reached at different levels. Because the project
is still ongoing, for the time being the editors decided to reproduce the canonical 19 th century
edition of the text, the so-called Rückert-Ausgabe (1852) until a new reading text is established
(based on all witnesses). It is also possible to browse a beta-version of the new synoptic edition,
which is achieved through a specific edition viewer and enables the direct comparison of
available witnesses.17 Image criticism is carried out in two ways. On the one hand, by browsing
the available reading text, the user can identify the parts corresponding to an illustrated motif
(marked in red) and then access the corresponding image apparatus. On the other hand, the
user can browse a section of the project which is completely dedicated to illustrations. Within
this section, images are grouped into recurrent motifs (such as ‘unfaithfulness’, ‘wickedness’,
etc.), and each motif lists all the possible realisations of it within the manuscript tradition, in
other words all variants. In each image, all relevant components (actors and texts) can be
highlighted and seen in all the manuscripts at the same time, so that one can easily detect
correspondences and differences (see screenshot below).18



16 For a discussion on the same topic and other examples see [29] and [30].
17 https://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/helios/digi/dwork.html#viewer (last access: 22 September 2020).
18 Zone annotation in achieved by means of Semantic Topological Notes (SemToNotes) is a Topological
   Image Annotation and Image Retrieval System written in JavaScript.


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          A. Cappellotto – From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the age of its digital
                                                                                 reproduction




Figure 4: Welscher Gast Digital - image apparatus



        The facsimile and the social(ized) edition

The digital facsimile finds alternative ways of exploitation also in the so-called ‘social editions’.
To borrow Siemens’ words, a social edition “blends traditional scholarly editing practices and
standards with comparatively recent digital social media environments” ([38]). In social edition
projects, willing users can collaborate in producing the edition by taking responsibility of
mechanical tasks such as OCR post-processing or even the transcription of primary sources.
Willing social editors can also participate in other tasks like digital facsimile annotation or text
encoding. This can be slightly more challenging, because it requires a higher degree of expertise
in matter such as XML on the participants’ part, and a higher degree of control on the editorial
side. Nevertheless, this is what usually happens on a small scale within the development of DSE
projects and for this reason one might also say that every digital edition is a social undertaking.
Social editions are, whether consciously or not, a new product of the digital shift and one of the
results of developments of the Web 2.0 in digital scholarly editing. And yet they have provoked


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     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.9, 2020

criticism from the scholarly community, based on the conviction that ordinary people cannot
improvise as philologists: because they cannot, social editions simply would not exist.
Philologists would not be able to qualify as simple ‘facilitators’, as editions are always governed
by the unavoidable authority of a professional scholarly editor ([34]).
The social edition, as envisaged by Siemens “further extends this concept of textual production
by arguing for the significance of the material form of a text and its ability to affect the text’s
meaning” ([38]). Surely one of the best-known projects (chosen here also for a chronological
contiguity with the Middle Ages), is a Social Edition of the Devonshire Manuscript, published on
Wikibooks, in the editors’ words the example of an intersection between academic and wiki
culture. Ordinary people can participate in the making of the projects, which responds both to
the latest findings of editorial theory and practice (the ‘social text’) and to the original shape of
the manuscript, which was since the time of its creation a collective undertaking (Siemens
2016).
The last editorial product I would like to discuss is Geoffrey Chaucer’s CantApp: The General
Prologue. An Edition in an App, that was published in February 2020 ([25]). It includes a new
edition of the General Prologue and other scholarly content such as Terry Jones’s translation,
notes, glosses, etc. Not only does this app try to make the public at large access one of the
monuments of English (and world) literature in its material context, but in the editors’ words it
also lets people experience the text as it was in Chaucer’s time, thanks to the audio performance
of the prologue which is available in the app (Medievalists.net [23]). The default app
visualization offers high resolution facsimile of the well-known Hengwrt manuscript (or
Hengwrt Chaucer, Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 392 D, 1400 ca.),
regarded as the best source for the Canterbury Tales (North et al. 2020). Digital surrogates,
transcription, translation and audio performance are strongly integrated with each other: the
user can follow each manuscript line by listening to it and at the same time by reading the
transcription and the modern English translation. However, if one is more interested in a
reading text, other visualization options can be selected without losing information about the
facsimile, the lines of which are displayed next to the text or translation.


       Some conclusions

This essay has tried to show that a long discussion of scholarly editing, along with the latest
digital transformation in the humanities and the development of the Web 2.0, triggered a
rethinking of editorial theories and practices towards a material shift. This turn was primarily
produced by the general reassessment of a material, that is codicological, dimension of the text
that needed to be taken into account while studying and editing texts for scholarly use.
Philologists began to bring the text back into the codex and they are still searching for novel
ways to integrate both in the edition effectively.
An extraordinary drive for this material shift in editing was the proliferation of digitized
primary sources, which has made editors develop new standards for the digitization (IIIF) and
annotation of digital surrogates (TEI). Even though most of the projects offer the facsimile as


                                                14
          A. Cappellotto – From codex to apps: the medieval manuscript in the age of its digital
                                                                                 reproduction

‘accessory’ or ‘additional’ material, there are various outstanding examples of a more productive
and ‘constitutive’ integration of digital surrogates in DSE projects. In this context, the
Electronic Beowulf is surely one early pivotal project which fostered the exploitation of the
facsimile and made it become at the centre of editorial undertaking. Critical editions like the
Canterbury Tales Project or the Parzival project, despite being grounded on different editorial
principles and aiming at different editorial goals (to provide one or more critical texts), enhance
the value of each single manuscript which is included in the edition. Not to mention those
editions in which the visual component of the text is prevalent, such as illustrated manuscripts,
where the need to represent the document is fundamental for the creation of a good edition,
but much work still needs to be done to find satisfactory solutions.
The Web 2.0 provides other examples of editions where the role of the facsimile is at their core:
the social editions, where the collaboration between philologists-facilitators and public at large
is based on the work on the document, or The General Prologue app, entirely based on the
exploitation of the digital image. In conclusion, the more the edition loses its materiality –
from manuscripts to apps – the more texts are appreciated in all their materiality in new forms
of editorial endeavours.


       References

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