Re: VMs: Quattrocento Minor Characters...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rene,

At 07:21 01/12/2003 -0800, Rene Zandbergen wrote:
> for inspiration, you might want to look at the
> well-known catalogue of 1600's scientists
> at the Galileo project (which presumably you
> have seen):
>
> http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/catalog.html

Yes, I saw this a while back - but thanks for reminding me!

I suppose what I'm aiming for is a bit more free-form and social... many 
references to Quattrocento minor characters are fragmentary (diaries, 
letters, footnotes, etc), so the objective is to try to assemble those 
jigsaw pieces into a (hopefully) more cohesive whole.

The "Catalog of Scientists..." seems to have been the result of that kind 
of endeavour by one persistent individual, much like the list of characters 
assembled by Lydia Cerioni (she gives brief biographies on and 
cross-references to the numerous individuals mentioned in the Milanese 
cipher ledger): here, I'm more interested in seeing where a collaborative 
effort could take this same general idea. :-)

In an ideal world, I'd convert Cerioni's list into an on-line document, so 
that all her inter-character cross-references were clickable, and that 
additional information (such as web references, or updated books) could be 
integrated into an evolving skein. However, her last publication appears to 
have been 33 years ago - I don't know how to get in touch with her to ask 
if that might be possible. I tried contacting one online journalist (Luigi 
Fava) who mentioned her name in a web article, but haven't yet had a 
reply... and, of course, he might not even have been referring to her). Oh 
well. :-(

Her book was published in 1970 by "Fonti e studi del Corpus membranarum 
italicarum" in Rome, which appears to have still been actively publishing 
as late as 1987 - does anyone have any ideas on how to contact them?

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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