RICERCA ITALIANA     

Middle Ages

Università degli Studi di Salerno

Abstract

"Medioevo latino. Bollettino bibliografico della cultura europea da Boezio a Erasmo (secoli VI-XV)" is a yearly bibliography that informs on the medievistic production of the former year. The review has been regularly published since 1980. From the bibliographic point of view "Medioevo latino" distinguishes itself by the fact that it gives not only a list of titles, but also a summary of their content. It is in fact the final result of a systematic, complete and direct perusal of books, reviews and bulletins regarding medieval culture and history. The bibliographic data taken into consideration have systematically grown during the twenty-two years of the Bulletin, both for the widening of the chronological period (from the period between VI and XIII centuries of the first 12 issues, to the period between VI and XV centuries of the 13th and following issues) and for the increasing number of examined reviews.
The experience gained through the years and the better knowledge of the contents have led to some modifications in the inner structure of the Bulletin, so that it can offer now a more specialist and articulated classification of data. The organization of the material, more articulated from the volume IX (with some little amendments and corrections in volumes X and XI), has been structured from the volume XXIII within the following reference grid:
First Part: Authors and texts (where the records are ordered under the lemma of the medieval author or, if anonymous, under the title of the work; moreover from the issue XXIII the bibliography is distributed under every work of each author).
Second Part: "Fortleben of classical and Christian authors", as well as of the Bible (like "Authors and texts").
Third Part: "Arguments, library genres, institutions", divided in its turn in a series of sections and subsections: I. Disciplines; II. Philology and literature; III. Literary genres; IV. Institutions; V. History of culture and spirituality; VI. History of medievistic.
(in particular from volume XXIII many undersections have been placed in sections I, II, III, IV and V).
Fourth Part: Auxiliaries sciences of history, with the sections: Heraldry, Codicology, Chronology and Cronography, Diplomatic, Epigraphy, Genealogy, Iconography, Numismatics, Palaeography, Sphragistics.
Fifth Part: "Reference books", with the following sections: Bibliographies, Catalogues of manuscripts, Dictionaries, Electronic elaboration of data, Lists of incipits, Handbooks, Encyclopaedias.
Sixth Part: Conferences and Miscellanies, with the following sections: Conferences, Miscellanies, Collected studies, Festschriften.
Seventh Part: "Manuscripts from catalogues" (in this section the reader is informed on texts deduced from catalogues of manuscripts pointed out in the Bulletin).
The review has moreover a series of indexes: index of manuscripts and prints, lexical index, geographical index, index of researchers.
By now the data-base, inclusive of issues I-XXV, contains about 200.000 records: a special editorial staff works on its correction and control.
In addiction to the software that runs the main and secondary archives, the latter regarding reviews, libraries, manuscripts and passwords in which the Bulletin is divided (medieval authors, centres of medieval libraries, councils, cathedrals, cities, modern researchers object of storiographic studies), has been created a software that allows inquiry of all the consultation fields of bibliographic items, from the password to the publisher, from the author to the series, to secondary archives and indexes. <<<

Principal Investigator

Ileana PAGANI Università degli Studi di SALERNO

Research Objectives

Production of "Medioevo latino. Bollettino bibliografico della cultura europea da Boezio a Erasmo (secoli VI-XV)". It is a bibliography of texts about the Middle Ages, in particular about Latin Middle Ages and, at the same time, a bibliography including information on disciplines, literary genres and institutions of the same period. There are two specific sections for indication of reference books, conferences and miscellanies concerning latin Middle Ages. From volume XVII an appendix is present: it includes the list of authors, texts and works contained in catalogues of manuscripts recently published. "Medioevo latino" is at the moment the only instrument in his genre in the worldwide medievistic. Specialized bibliographies also will be published: they will be obtained from the general data-base bibliography. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The bibliographical information is a necessary instrument of every kind of scientific research: there is in fact no real knowledge without considering the continuous progress of research and studies. This is particularly important as concerns philological and historical subjects. Two conditions are significant for them: first of all the possibility of yearly and updated information, second, the availability of the past bibliography, the knowledge of which is a necessary stage of research. As concerns classical studies, a yearly bibliography was and is still available: the journal "Année philologique". But as concerns medieval studies, no general bibliography like the "Année philologique" existed until 1970. There were special bibliographies like that on medieval manuscripts edited by the journal "Scriptorium", on ecclesiastical history edited by the journal "Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique", on medieval canon law edited by the "Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law", or like the ones edited by the "Deutsches Archiv" and by the "International Medieval Bibliography" (the last one informs only of articles in journals and miscellanies - but not at all of monographies - about history and, in particular, about history of institutions), and of course there were special bibliographies on sigle authors. A yearly bibliography about Middle Ages was for this reason extremely necessary and urgent, expecially because since the period after the Second World War medievistical stdies have become more and more popular, so that also research centres, specialistic reviews, series of texts and studies, meetings and conferences have increased. For this reason, under suggestion of prof. Francesco Della Corte, at that time President of National Council of Research 08 Committee, prof. Claudio Leonardi projected in 1978 a yearly bibliography on Middle ages. He chose the title "Medioevo latino" and the sub-title "Bibliographical Bulletin of European Culture", later specified with the addition "from Boece to Erasmus (VI-XV Centuries)". The project brought to the publication of the first issue in 1980: since then other 25 issues have followed (the 26th will be published in 2005). Outcome of this twenty-year work is a data-base of about 200.000 records, that are continuously updated. The project met with outstanding success in the whole scientific world since the first issues In 1998 was published the first CD-ROM containing the data-base of the first ten volumes of "Medioevo latino". Since the beginning, many great professors who study medieval latin literature contribute to the journal: among them M. Lapidge (Cambridge), A. Paravicini Bagliani (Lausanne), J. Dalarun (Paris), M. Laureys (Bonn), E. Könsgen (Marburg), P. G. Schmidt (Freiburg i.Br.), J.M. Díaz de Bustamante (Santiago de Compostela), F. Dolbeau (Paris), J.F. Meirinhos (Porto), T. Struve (Düsseldorf), Thomas Haye (Göttingen), Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich (Jena), Christel Meier-Staubach (Münster), Gábor Klaniczay (Budapest), Paul Remley (Seattle, WA), Rosalind Love (Cambridge), José Martínez Gázquez (Barcelona), Carlo Pérez González (Burgos).
Many Italian scholars contribute to "Medioevo latino", among which G. Cremascoli (Bologna), O. Limone (Lecce), V. Sivo (Foggia), P. Viti (Lecce), G. Orlandi (Milano), A. De Prisco (Verona), R. Avesani (Roma), G. Scalia (Roma), F. Bertini (Genova), S. Pittaluga (Genova), G. Picasso (Milano), Carla Falluomini (Sassari), Paolo Chiesa (Udine), Francesco Stella (Arezzo), Benedetto Clausi (Università della Calabria), Donatella Frioli (Padova), Paolo Gatti (Trento). The general supervision of the process of editing is guaranteed by Claudio Leonardi, Ileana Pagani and Lucia Pinelli. <<<