The Center for Italian Studies is pleased to present an interactive workshop with Professor Guyda Armstrong and Giles Bergel of the Universities of Oxford and Manchester, showcasing new digital methods for the study of early modern printing.
This session will introduce the research questions and first findings of Envisioning Dante c. 1472-1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page, funded by the UK government (c. £1 million; 2022-25). Participants will be given practical, hands-on demonstrations of the techniques and new digital tools developed by the project for analyzing and comparing early printed books.
The Envisioning Dante project was the first full in-depth study of the material forms of Renaissance printed editions of Dante’s Comedy, from the first editions of 1472 through to the seventeenth century. It took a new and innovative look at the book forms in which the text travels in this period by examining a uniquely rich and complete corpus of early printed books of Dante held in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library at the University of Manchester, UK (which lacks only three editions). With a multidisciplinary team from literary and visual studies, book history, and computer science, the project used machine vision technologies to look at — envision — the layout of the individual pages of each edition as discrete visual, graphic entities. Join the project leaders to learn about the powerful new methodologies they developed to track historic print production through time, space, and media, reflecting on how AI can enlarge and accelerate our ways of seeing the page. Participants should bring their laptops and a pencil to join in with the activities.
The event is co-sponsored by the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship and the Center for Italian Studies.
Originally published at italianstudies.nd.edu.