While scholars had been familiar for some time with the original Latin version of the Compendia (1593) – attributed to the Spanish Jesuit Pedro Gómez (1533/35–1600) – the only sections hitherto accessible in Japanese translation (c.1595) were the complete first section (De anima) and the bulk of the second section (De theologia) in a single manuscript. At almost 800 pages, the newly discovered HAB manuscript comprises not only the entire second section but also the whole of the third section (De sphaera), which, with its geocentric philosophy and doctrine of the four elements, serves as an introduction to the tradition of Aristotle and Ptolemy.

The aim of the project is now to prepare and present the newly discovered manuscripts of the Compendia in a user-oriented, historically critical digital edition so that it will be accessible to researchers. A close cooperation is envisaged between the Japanese Language and Literature Department at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Ruhr University Bochum) and the HAB as both the owner of the manuscript and as a renowned institution in the field of digital humanities, which, in the context of its digital library and digital editions, is known for its coding in XML/TEI-P5, text-mining tools, search algorithms, etc. The digital edition will be accompanied by a doctoral project, which will use specific examples to demonstrate the possibilities offered by such a digital edition.

The project will use methods from linguistics and translation studies as well as digital stylometry to address a series of related questions about authors and translators, text genesis and traditions, European models and translation strategies that have to date been inadequately answered. The preparatory work for the current research application has already yielded the first promising results. However, the approach described above will only unfold its full potential once a digital edition of the Compendia has been published.

Participants: Prof. Sven Osterkamp (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Sophia Takahashi (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG

Duration: April 2024 – March 2027

PURL: http://diglib.hab.de/?link=196