RICERCA ITALIANA     

A census of Medieval and Renaissance Latin writers and their works (years 500-1500).

Abstract

CALMA is different from other repertories of this sort in ways both quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative, because its scope includes all Latin authors of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, without restriction as to literary genre or nationality (restrictions of this sort inevitably characterize other repertories in the field). The qualitative difference lies in the fact that, for each author, CALMA supplies all the scholarly information, both historical and literary, which is necessary for those who would undertake critical editions or scholarly commentaries of individual texts.
The research undertaken by CALMA is thus of a fundamental nature. This much is clear from the fact that it links up with other research activity devoted to particular groups of authors and texts: the material assembled in the database concerns all those authors who may at some time be the object of specialized treatment, and this feature underlines its relevance to subject-specific studies of many kinds. The usefulness of this feature is reflected, for example, in the research presented in “Gli autori della Scuola medica salernitana”, or in “Gli agiografi della Puglia medievale”, both of which publications reflect indirectly the fundamental research of CALMA.
The present application seeks financial support to continue this fundamental research. One feature of the research which results from CALMA is a continuing and important revaluation of scholarly traditions of the >>>

Principal Investigator

Francesco Santi Università degli Studi del SALENTO

Research Objectives

The aim is to produce, during the years 2008-2010, a further 800 entries, allowing for the publication, in printed form, of four fascicules of approximately 130 pages each, composed (according to the conventions of repertories in this field) in Latin, and accessible in electronic form as well.

First Results

Print of 4 issues and data base updating.
It should be noted that resources allocated to CALMA in past years were entirely devoted to work on the database and on relevant equipment. No resources whatsoever were devoted to travel expenses or to conferences. Educational activities such as seminars and the scholarly (and sometimes public) encounters which normally result from enterprises like this, are undertaken with the financial assistance of the individual universities and collaborators involved in the project. A system of cross-references supplies alternative forms of the name (these are often unexpected, even if common).

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

CALMA (Compendium Auctorum Latinorum Medii Aevi) is a research project involving those universities which participate in PRIN, with the additional cooperation of scholars from the University of Cambridge, the Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino in Florence, as well as other Italian and European universities (including Francesco Santi, University of Salento, Mauro Donnini, University of Perugia and Luigi Giovanni Giuseppe Ricci, University of Sassari; other collaborators in this scholarly project include Michael Lapidge, University of Cambridge; Claudio Leonardi, Florence; Michael Bachmann, Freiburg i. Br.; Armando Bisanti, University of Palermo; Lucia Pinelli, Florence; Stefano Pittaluga, University of Genoa; and Francesco Vincenzo Stella, University of Siena). The aim of CALMA is to establish the canon of writings of all Latin authors from 500 to 1500, by providing for each author —and for each individual work— a reliable bibliography.
What the project has achieved to date is the creation of a catalogue (lemmario) of authors consisting of approximately 10.000 names, and a database formed from entries which reach as far as authors whose names begin with the letters CLE- (a further 2.000 entries). The aim is to produce, during the years 2008-2010, a further 800 entries, allowing for the publication, in printed form, of four fascicules of approximately 130 pages each, composed (according to the conventions of repertories in this field) in Latin, and >>>