Corrispondenze diplomatiche francesi del Seicento: le possibilità offerte dall'edizione digitale

Abstract

This article presents a digital edition of the 17th century diplomatic correspondence of Benoît Cise de Grésy. The first part of the paper introduces the author, while the second part examines the traditional critical printed edition and the changes made to the texts. The paper discusses the benefits of text modernisation for content comprehension even if this comes at the expense of the language's idiosyncrasies. An examination of a number of existing digital editions of correspondence frames the description of the digital edition of Benoît Cise de Grésy's correspondence, outlining the technologies used (EVT and oXygen) and the advantages afforded by the digital medium. An example of linguistic annotation with TreeTagger is also presented in order to illustrate some of the software's current issues in the treatment of modern and old French. In this regard, the paper discusses existing efforts by a number of European research groups - PRESTO in particular - to tailor linguistic markup to the specificities of the French language. Additionally, some of the issues faced during the editing process are analysed, including the implications of limited digital proficiency and the need for collaboration between philologists and computer scientists. Next, the paper reflects on what it means to be a digital humanist and on the skills required to foster a constructive dialogue with those responsible for the creation of the digital edition. The paper concludes with a description of the issues concerning ISBN, DOI and SIAE registration and of a number of digital document conservation projects conducted by the libraries of the University of Turin, particularly SIRIO@UNITO and TUTTO.