Alignment

Alignment is a digital tool designed with two principal aims:

  1. To map the contents of a selection of key witnesses of the Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César
  2. To represent visually the variation of some selected textual features.

Users can choose from three visualisations:

  • Columns : offers access to details concerning single paragraphs as well as an overall view.
  • Table : the best option for those who need to locate a paragraph in one of the manuscripts or compare the contents or rubrics of a short range of paragraphs. The sequence of paragraphs will appear in a classic tabular presentation.
  • Bars : the best option for a synthetic view of larger textual ranges, such as entire sections or the whole text. It is also the most suitable solution for individuating patterns of variation.

Alignment records the contents of each manuscript, numbered according to the paragraph division of Paris, BnF, f. fr. 20125, including information on rubrics, prose and verse form, material and non-material lacunae.

Alignment is integrated with the digital edition of the Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César: Users can directly access the text of each paragraph in Paris, BnF, f. fr. 20125 and London, BL, Royal 20 D I from the visualisations by clicking on 'Read' or the relevant bar.

Alignment displays data from eight manuscripts:

  • Paris, BnF, f. fr. 20125 – the most complete witness of the first redaction. [see the reproduction]
  • London, BL, Royal 20 D I – the earliest and most authoritative witness of the second redaction. The alignment of Royal includes Prose 5, a section which is exclusive to the second redaction. [see the reproduction]
  • London, BL, Additional 15268 – an important representative of the ‘Acre’ group, i.e. one of the late thirteenth-century manuscripts produced in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which disseminate the 'long' version of the first redaction. [see the reproduction]
  • London, BL, Additional 19669 – one of the earliest witnesses of the so-called ‘beta version’ of the first redaction, the abridged text produced in north-eastern France. [see the reproduction]
  • Paris, BnF, f. fr. 686 – a copy of the 'long' version copied from an Acre model, likely produced in the Veneto between 1350 and 1375. The manuscript also includes Li Faits des Romains (ff. 424r-455r), Lives of Chevaliers (ff. 445r-448r), Légendes des saints apôtres (448r-555v). [see the reproduction]
  • Paris, BnF, f. fr. 17177 – derives from the ‘beta version’ of the first redaction and provides a further abbreviated text; it represents one of the rare cases in which the Histoire ancienne is copied in a manuscript compilation. [see the reproduction]
  • Chantilly, Bibliothèque du château, 726 – the earliest witness to transmit the Histoire ancienne with the Faits des Romains; produced in Italy, likely for Charles I of Anjou (d. 1285), towards the end of the thirteenth century; shares the iconographic tradition (multi-compartment illuminations across two registers) with BL, Additional 19669 and BnF, f. fr. 17177. [see the reproduction]
  • (Vienna1) Vienna, Österreichsche Nationalbibliothek, cod. 2576 [original section] – a mid-14th-century Venetian copy providing a text very close to Paris, BnF, f. fr. 20125 for Genesis, and an abridged, rewritten and lacunary text for the other sections. [see the reproduction]
  • (Vienna2) Vienna, Österreichsche Nationalbibliothek, cod. 2576 [later additions] – later additions and integration deriving from the abridged version. [see the reproduction]

Navigate to Alignment: Guide

January 2022