Speculum

About the Digital Edition of Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja

The Speculum project and the digital edition of the Medieval Croatian text Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja (1445) were created during the research stay of Martina Kramarić in the Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities in Graz (=ACDH, https://informationsmodellierung.uni-graz.at/en/), located at Universitiy of Graz, and was made possible with the help of ZIM-ACDH.

In this project the digital edition of Medieval Croatian Glagolitic text Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja (1445) was created. This large text (81 folios) is part of the Glagolitic manuscript called Manuscript of the deacon Luka, which is preserved in the Vatican library (Borg. L. VII. 9, illirico 9). This digital edition is created as a complex digital object in which the digitized text and the digitized manuscript are connected and displayed in a parallel view. The digital workflow as well the design of the edition were created according the project CoReMA (Cooking Recipes of the Middle Ages) and Hyper (Hyper diplomatic publication platform).

For long-term preservation, all research data was transferred into the digital repository GAMS (https://gams.uni-graz.at). GAMS is an OAIS-compliant Asset Management System based on the Open Source software Fedora Commons, certified with the Core Trust Seal and registered in the Registry of Research Data Repositories (https://www.re3data.org/). The repository builds upon a web service-based (SOAP, REST), platform-independent and distributed system architecture, a largely XML-based content strategy, the support of XML-based import and export standards, and the use of standardized data and metadata formats. GAMS uses Handles (http://www.handle.net/) for the persistent identification of archived objects.

This project was created during the JESH Fellowship of Martina Kramarić at the University of Graz and realized at the ZIM-ACDH. The facsimiles are displayed with permission of the Vatican Library using the IIIF Image API.

In the project Speculum, the digital edition of the Medieval Croatian Glagolitic text Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja (1445) was created. This large text (81 folios) is part of the Glagolitic manuscript called Manuscript of the deacon Luka, which is preserved in the Vatican Library (Borg. L. VII. 9, illirico 9). The Croatian text Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja (1445) was translated from Old Czech along with other medieval texts during the stay of the Croatian Benedictine monks in Emaus, Prague, in the 14th and 15th centuries. The origin of the Czech text Zrcadlo človečieho spasenie is the famous Latin medieval bestseller Speculum humanae salvationis. The Speculum Humanae Salvationis was one of the most successful texts of the late Middle Ages. There are roughly 400 surviving manuscript copies of this work, the majority of which are in Latin, held in libraries and archives around the world. Speculum was one of the first printed books, and four block book editions have survived. The Latin literal work was soon translated into vernacular languages, but only into French, Dutch, German, English, Czech, and Croatian. The Croatian version, besides its Old Czech template Zrcadlo, is the only Slavic version of this Medieval masterpiece, a fact that has so far gone unnoticed in the extensive literature on this work. This story of human redemption from sin described through biblical events was written in the early 14th century by an unknown author. Thanks to its combination of words and pictures and its didactic and biblical content, the book became very popular. The literal work Speculum Humanae Salvationis had a great impact on religious life and iconography throughout the late Middle Ages.In the project Speculum, the digital edition of the Medieval Croatian Glagolitic text Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja (1445) was created. This large text (81 folios) is part of the Glagolitic manuscript called Manuscript of the deacon Luka, which is preserved in the Vatican Library (Borg. L. VII. 9, illirico 9). The Croatian text Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja (1445) was translated from Old Czech along with other medieval texts during the stay of the Croatian Benedictine monks in Emaus, Prague, in the 14th and 15th centuries. The origin of the Czech text Zrcadlo človečieho spasenie is the famous Latin medieval bestseller Speculum humanae salvationis. The Speculum Humanae Salvationis was one of the most successful texts of the late Middle Ages. There are roughly 400 surviving manuscript copies of this work, the majority of which are in Latin, held in libraries and archives around the world. Speculum was one of the first printed books, and four block book editions have survived. The Latin literal work was soon translated into vernacular languages, but only into French, Dutch, German, English, Czech, and Croatian. The Croatian version, besides its Old Czech template Zrcadlo, is the only Slavic version of this Medieval masterpiece, a fact that has so far gone unnoticed in the extensive literature on this work. This story of human redemption from sin described through biblical events was written in the early 14th century by an unknown author. Thanks to its combination of words and pictures and its didactic and biblical content, the book became very popular. The literal work Speculum Humanae Salvationis had a great impact on religious life and iconography throughout the late Middle Ages.

Croatian Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja is written in the Glagolitic Angular script, typical for Croatian literature of the 14th and 15th centuries. The language of the text is Old Croatian (Čakavian) literary language with elements of the northern Čakavian organic speech and Old Church Slavonic elements. Since this is a direct translation of the Old Czech work, the influence of the Old Czech language is present on all linguistic levels, albeit unequally.

The text is transcribed in adjusted semi-diplomatic transcription, with modern punctuation added. The Glagolitic text is converted into the Standard Croatian Latin spelling system while respecting the specific features of contemporary Croatian language (when it comes to sentence organization and punctuation). Croatian Glagolitic manuscripts are often written in scriptura continua, without boundaries between words or parts of the text.

The text of this digital edition was created according to the transcription published in Kramarić, Martina 2019. Zrcalo člověčaskago spasenja (1445): Transcription, the context of its creation, and historical linguistics analysis. Zagreb: Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics, but the critical apparatus, which follows that transcription, was in this edition removed or simplified. Necessary editor’s comments will be displayed as Notes. In this edition, we resolve any ligatures, abbreviations, and all other scribal shortenings of the letters without any comments. The same applies to the scribal manner of not recording the vocalized semivowels ъ and ь. In Old Croatian Čakavian language, that vocalization was mainly replaced with the vowel a (for example: lub'vi (ļub(a)vi), v' (va), v'zme (vazme)). The old grapheme jat for the vowel ê is reconstructed according to assumed rules of Old Croatian Čakavian language, without comments as well, but only in obvious examples, and at the beginning of a word as ja. We do not assume a possible Ekavian or Ikavian reflex of the vowel ê. Letter ĵ (đerv) is reconstructed as j, and letter ĉ (šta) as šć and ć. Glagolitic grapheme ju is written as ju. We added intervocalic j in combinations of diphthongs like oa, oe (for example tvoja, moje). We distinguish the iotated and non-iotated set of letters l and n, palatals ļ, ń are written as ļ and ń, and non-iotated combinations /l/ + /j/ and /n/ + /j/ as lj and nj.

With the abbreviations r or v and the added number, we mark the number of folio, and with the letters a and b, we mark the columns (Column: a, Column: b). A detailed description of the rules and manners of transcription can be found in Kramarić 2019. Scribal errors, corrections in the texts, adding of letters, words, and parts of the text on margins, superscript written letters, words, and parts of the text, and any other features will be marked using proper tags. This does not apply to the grapheme t, which was often written in superscript position because that was the scribal manner of Glagolitic texts. We will not comment on that manner, and such a letter t will be written as part of the normal text. Supplied letters, words, and parts of the text added by an editor will also be marked up with TEI tags.

Kramarić, Martina; Schneider, Gerlinde (Eds.): Speculum: Digital edition of Zrcalo člověčaskogo spasenja. Graz 2024. URL: gams.uni-graz.at/speculum. (Last change: July 2024)

Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung – Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities
Elisabethstraße 59/III
A-8010 Graz

Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities
Elisabethstraße 59/III
A-8010 Graz
http://informationsmodellierung.uni-graz.at

Release date: 2024

Last change: July 2024

Dr. sc. Martina Kramarić, senior research associate

Philologist, Historical linguist, works at the Institute for the Croatian Language in the Department of Croatian Language History

Gerlinde Schneider

Digital Humanist, software developer; coordinator DiTAH, CLARIN Centre; implementer of image viewers; self-employed.

GAMS - Geisteswissenschaftliches Asset Management System
http://gams.uni-graz.at

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The textual content of the comments is licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0.
The facsimiles are re-used with kind permission of the Vatican Library via the IIIF Image API, all rights reserved.

Austrian Academy of Sciences; JESH fellowship

Website: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/foerderungen/joint-excellence-in-science-humanities