The Latin Middle Ages. A comprehensive bibliographic repertory of writers, texts and manuscripts

The project consists in: 1) the census of all the bibliographic information on literature and Latin culture between the sixth and fifteenth century, gathered from the scientific studies published (in any form and in any place) during the three years of the project. Such information will be processed into analytical records, which will be published in a repertory. In addition to the essential bibliographic indications that make the sources identifiable, the records will also include a summary of their contents with a special focus on aspects pertaining to textual criticism and philology, explicitly conceived to facilitate research in the field of medieval Latin literature. The container provided for the dissemination of the results is the repertory «Medioevo Latino», internationally considered as the fundamental tool for any bibliographic research on medieval literature and culture for over forty years. The data gathered in the research will be made available in open-access inside the database of the repertory, currently hosted on the site "Mirabile"; the database will be accompanied by a printed publication in the traditional form of an annual bibliographic bulletin. The disciplinary specificity of this research requires the organic collaboration of several units: since the representatives of such discipline in Italian universities are often limited to a single researcher or teacher, the project must involve as many of them as possible, so that their efforts may converge towards a common goal, granting beneficial results across the board. A considerable portion of the requested funding will be used to assign an adequate number of research grants for five units, in order to ensure the steady advancement of the cataloging process. 2) the promotion of research projects in the specific field of each unit, and possibly the expansion of the database through the development of new innovative research tools; such resources will also be made available in open-access. In particular, the unit of Milan plans on increasing the manuscript archive with data on geographical manuscripts and manuscripts of travel literature. The unit of Bologna is entrusted with the development of a repertory of authors and texts related to medieval medicine and pharmacology, which will be made available on the website. The unit of Trento will focus on collecting and reviewing the bibliography on hagiographic texts, in order to expand the manuscript archive of the “Mirabile” with new entries on manuscripts of hagiographic content. The unit of Udine will develop a new database hosting the results of the project "Te.Tra. The transmission of Latin texts of the Middle Ages”, which will also be accessible through the portal "Mirabile". The unit of Naples-Vanvitelli will deal with texts focusing on spiritual subjects, with a special focus on works of religious instruction, devotional manuals and mystical documents.