How Digital Cultural Heritage Resources can Lead to New Understandings in the Humanities: Future Challenges for Digital Libraries and Archives (Invited Paper)

This paper reports on the presentation made during the panel on "Digital Libraries and Digital Archives: Problems and Challenges for AI Approaches" of the 1st Workshop on Intelligent Techniques At LIbraries and Archives (ITALIA 2015) co-located with the XIV Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, 22 September 2015, Ferrara, Italy

Forget the Umbrella - Culture Shock

Postcard from Rachelle Agosti, during the Linfield College Year Abroad Program at the Center for Cross Cultural Study in Seville, Spai

Guided Tours Across a Collection of Historical Digital Images

We propose the use of short lectures, called narratives, embedded in a digital archive as a personalization method to support and guide users within a collection of historical material. The effectiveness of the approach has been evaluated with two groups of users. An analysis of the results has been conducted enabling the presentation of preliminary results

Participatory, Visible and Sustainable. Designing a Community Website for a Minority Group

This paper tackles three aspects of community-based technological initiatives aimed to support minority groups’ public expression and communication: participation, visibility and sustainability. Participation requires\ud the active involvement of the community members in various project phases (from design to evaluation), sharing decisional power with project leaders. Visibility\ud refers to the capacity of community messages to reach a relevant audience outside the boundaries of the community itself. Sustainability indicates the capacity of a project to continue, under the control and management of the local community, beyond its “supported” lifetime. The mutual influence of these three dimensions is examined in general and also in the light of a specific case study: an initiative involving a Romani community in rural Romania, having as main outcome the development of a community website (www.romanivoices.com/podoleni)

Annotation Search: the FAST Way

Περιέχει το πλήρες κείμενοThis paper discusses how annotations can be exploited to develop information access and retrieval algorithms that take them into account. The paper proposes a general framework for developing such algorithms that specifically deals with the problem of accessing and retrieving topical information from annotations and annotated documents

Servicing the federation : the case for metadata harvesting

The paper presents a comparative analysis of data harvesting and distributed computing as complementary models of service delivery within large-scale federated digital libraries. Informed by requirements of flexibility and scalability of federated services, the analysis focuses on the identification and assessment of model invariants. In particular, it abstracts over application domains, services, and protocol implementations. The analytical evidence produced shows that the harvesting model offers stronger guarantees of satisfying the identified requirements. In addition, it suggests a first characterisation of services based on their suitability to either model and thus indicates how they could be integrated in the context of a single federated digital library

Versificare i riti pagani. Per uno studio del catalogo delle iniziazioni nel 'San Cipriano' di Eudocia

Il poemetto su San Cipriano dell’imperatrice Eudocia (400-460), parafrasi esametrica di un modello agiografico in prosa (un ricco dossier trasmesso in molte lingue), presenta un indubbio interesse sul piano culturale, stilistico e storico-religioso, ma è ancora uno dei più sottovalutati dell’intera produzione letteraria tardo antica, nonostante alcuni ottimi studi recenti di Salvaneschi, Livrea, Bevegni. Il presente lavoro pone le premesse per un’analisi letteraria della parte del II libro (che corrisponde alla 'Conuersio' agiografica) dedicata alla storia delle iniziazioni ai culti pagani da parte di Cipriano, un vertiginoso viaggio attraverso la geografia sacra ed esoterica della religiosità tradizionale, dalla Grecia alla Frigia, alla Scizia, all’Egitto, alla ‘regione dei Caldei’. La riscrittura eudociana ('S. Cypr.' II 1-274) presenta motivi di interesse per più aspetti: a) le allusioni alla realtà antiochena, ancora da indagare in modo dettagliato; b) le modalità di recitazione del testo (esplorando gli indizi di una performance orale); c) le informazioni sui culti misterici, che devono essere analizzate caso per caso, al fine di stabilire quale redazione della 'Confessio' Eudocia utilizzava e gli scarti e le modifiche (abbreviazioni, espansioni, aggiunte di dettagli) del modello, vale a dire i fattori che hanno determinato il suo progetto culturale. L’analisi di alcuni passi, come la descrizione dell’Egitto o l’esperienza di Cipriano a Babilonia, mostra come Eudocia volesse disegnare una sorta di ‘geografia religiosa’ negativa del paganesimo, attraverso la demistificazione della sapienza profana e la trasformazione in senso cristiano del linguaggio della tradizione epica.The poem on saint Cyprian of Antioch by the Empress Eudocia (400-460 CE), a verse paraphrase of a hagiographical dossier (known by Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Ethiopian versions), raises many interesting questions from the literary and religious point of view. Nevertheless it remains one of the most undervalued product of Late antique literature, despite some excellent recent studies by scholars as Salvaneschi, Livrea, Bevegni. This articles sets the stage for a literary analysis of the part of the second book (which corresponds to the prosastic 'Conuersio Cypriani') dealing with the initiations into pagan cults by young Cyprian, a dizzying journey through the sacred geography of ancient polytheism, from Greece to Phrygia, to Scythia, Egypt, and to the «land of the Chaldeans». Eudocia’s rewriting ('S. Cypr.' II 1-274) shows several aspects worth looking into: a) some possible allusions to the reality of Antioch in the fifth century; b) traces of oral performance of the text; c) informations on mystery cults, requiring a detailed analyse, in order to establish which draft of the 'Confessio Eudocia used, and to understand the changes (such as abbreviations, expansions, additions of details) she made of the prose model – i.e., the guidelines of her cultural project. The negative depiction of Egypt, or the deceiving experience of Cyprian in Babylon, are representative of Eudocia’s attitude and of her attempt to draw a sort of negative ‘religious geography’ of paganism, demystifying secular wisdom and transforming in Christian sense the language of the epic tradition

Dal cielo alla terra: un epigramma epigrafico su Siriano

pp.103-115L’analisi ha riguardato alcuni epigrammi composti nell’ambito della scuola neoplatonica di Atene nel IV e V secolo, in particolare di uno di Proclo (AP 7.341 = Marin. VP 36.37-41, p. 43 Saffrey-Segonds) e di uno recentemente scoperto alle pendici del Licabetto (SEG 51.298), destinato a esaltare probabilmente una statua di Siriano. Per quest’ultimo epigramma, il relatore ha proposto nuove integrazioni e una interpretazione differente da quella dell’ed. pr. L’individuazione di intertesti, infatti, come l’epigramma per Apollonio di Tiana (I. Cilic. 88 Dagron-Feissel = SEG 28.1251) e soprattutto l’oracolo esametrico in Porfirio, VP 22, permette di riesaminare il ruolo che la produzione poetica di encomi aveva nel tardo platonismo (una tradizione che dura fino al breve epitafio composto da Damascio, AP 7.553 = IGLSyr V 2336, Emesa, 537 d.C.). Sul piano letterario-ideologico, tale produzione poetica si propone di cantare, secondo la tradizione della paideia ellenica, i theioi andres, in contrapposizione alla contemporanea produzione poetica cristiana.The scholar analizes some epigrams composed within the ambit of IV-V century neoplatonic school of Athens, in particular Proclus's one (AP 7.341 = Marin. VP 36.37-41, p. 43 Saffrey-Segonds) and another recently discovered on Lycabettus's slope (SEG 51.298), probably intended to exalt a Syrianus's statue. For this last epigram, the scolar proposes new integrations and a different interpretation from which of editio princeps: the spotting of intertexts like the epigram for Apollonius of Tyana (I. Cilic. 88 Dagron-Feissel = SEG 28.1251) and, above all, the esametric oracle in Porphyrius, VP 22, allows to reexamine the function of poetic commendation in late platonism (a tradition wich holds up until the short epitaph composed by Damascius, AP 7.553 = IGLSyr V 2336, Emesa, 537 d.C.). This poetic production aims to praise the theioi andres, according to encyclios paideia, in opposition to contemporary christian poetry

Les langues de l’épigramme épigraphique grecque : regard sur l’identité culturelle chrétienne dans l’Antiquité tardive

This paper deals with the rich production of Greek verse inscriptions of Late Antiquity, a large, multi-layered production, which has been usually studied for its historical value. The literary aspects of late epigrams are not often considered by epigraphists, who merely emphasize the presence of “Homeric” expressions and syntagms. In order to show the interest and the results of a literary analysis of late epigraphic epigrams, a sample of Christian inscriptions in verse, of the fifth and sixth centuries, from Crete, Asia Minor, Egypt is taken into consideration. The study of the language and the literary models reveals how these inscriptions, far from being a dull repetition of the so-called “Homeric model” are often inspired by contemporary poetic language, especially by that of Christian poetry. Greek Christian inscriptions in verse show a conscious, and ideological, re-use of Christian poets of the fourth and fifth centuries, in particular of Gregory of Nazianzen and Nonnus of Panopolis, together with / instead of the classical models. These epigrams should therefore be considered at the light of the general problem of the Christianization of the classical language. Their authors and their patrons tried to adapt the classical paideia to a language felt as “lawful” and more representative from an ideological and religious point of view.Cet article s’intéresse à la riche production d’inscriptions grecques versifiées de l’Antiquité tardive, une production vaste, à couches multiples, qui a été souvent étudiée pour sa valeur historique. Les aspects littéraires des épigrammes tardives ne sont pas souvent pris en considération par les épigraphistes, qui se limitent à souligner la présence d’expressions et de syntagmes «homériques». Afin de montrer l’intérêt et les résultats d’une analyse littéraire des épigrammes épigraphiques tardives, on prend en considération un échantillon d’inscriptions chrétiennes en vers des Ve et VIe siècles, provenant de la Crète, d’Asie Mineure et d’Égypte. L’étude de la langue et des modèles littéraires montre comment ces inscriptions, loin d’être une répétition terne du prétendu «modèle homérique», sont souvent inspirées par le langage poétique contemporain, en particulier par celui de la poésie chrétienne. Les inscriptions grecques chrétiennes en vers révèlent un réemploi conscient, et idéologique, des poètes chrétiens des IVeet Ve siècles, en particulier de Grégoire de Nazianze et de Nonnos de Panopolis, en complément, ou à la place des modèles classiques. Ces épigrammes doivent donc être considérées à la lumière de la problématique générale de la christianisation de la langue classique. Leurs auteurs et leurs commanditaires ont essayé d’adapter la paideia classique à une langue ressentie comme «légitime» et plus représentative d’un point de vue idéologique et religieux

Sul ruolo e la valutazione dei ‘minori’ nella poesia greca tardoantica

Agosti tenta di delineare le caratteristiche principali della produzione letteraria greca fra il quinto e il sesto secolo. Egli sostiene che durante questo lasso di tempo gli autori, basandosi sull’esempio di Nonno di Panopoli, sperimentino nuove forme di poesia e di generi letterari, come il centone e il Bibelepik. Autori come Giovanni di Gaza, Agazia e Paolo Silenziario vedono se stessi impegnati in un agone con i loro modelli letterari. Agosti sostiene che è ingiusto etichettare il linguaggio poetico di tali autori come vano manierismo; invece, andrebbe visto come uno specimen di un comune codice retorico condiviso da élite di sofisticati scrittori. Agosti fa presente che questa letteratura apparentemente ‘minore’ contiene preziose istantanee che rivelano il livello di cultura (e il benessere sociale) nelle provincie dell’impero bizantino del sesto secolo.Agosti attempts to sketch the main features of the Greek literary production between the fifth and sixth centuries. He argues that during this span of time authors, drawing on the example of Nonnus of Panopolis, experiment with new forms of poetry and literary genres such as the cento and the Bibelepik. Authors such as John of Gaza, Agathias and Paulus Silentiarius see themselves engaged in an agon with their literary models. Agosti argues that it is unfair to label the poetic language of these authors as empty mannerisms; instead, it should be seen as a specimen of a common rhetorical code shared by elites of sophisticated writers. Agosti points out that this seemingly "minor" literature contains valuable snapshots which reveal the level of culture (and social wealth) in the provinces of the sixth-century Byzantine empire