3.1: Scholarly Editing. Digital Humanities
Scholarly editing requires extensive knowledge, patience, and a particular responsibility for the integrity of the text. It is based on a close reading of sources and a deep familiarity with their historical and linguistic contexts. Publishing texts from bygone eras requires not only specialized expertise but also humility toward the sources and high precision – even a minor error in transcribing a manuscript can alter the meaning of the text. Here, the digital humanities open new possibilities: they allow for the organization of dispersed materials and make them accessible on a scale unattainable by traditional methods.
In the research on the legacy of Jan Dantyszek (Johannes Dantiscus) – royal secretary and diplomat in the service of the Jagiellons, an esteemed poet, and a prominent figure of the Polish Renaissance – conducted at the Laboratory for Source Editing and Digital Humanities, digital technologies are utilized alongside traditional methodological tools from the fields of philology, history, paleography, diplomatics, sigillography, codicology, etc. An interdisciplinary research team has formed around the Registration and Publication of the Correspondence of Johannes Dantiscus (1485–1548) programme, which has been ongoing since the 1980s.
To date, 6,110 letters have been registered. Among Dantyszek’s 648 correspondents are monarchs, dignitaries, and eminent humanists of the era, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Nicolaus Copernicus. In the series Corpus Epistularum Ioannis Dantisci, twelve volumes have already been published, including source inventories, critical editions of selected letters, and conference proceedings.
The program also serves as a methodological foundation for the digital humanities. A proprietary IT system supports teamwork and the publication of research results both in print and online. The platform utilizes a MySQL relational database and transcriptions in XML format compliant with the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) standard. Within the online publication Corpus of Ioannes Dantiscus’ Texts & Correspondence, full transcriptions of 75% of the letters have been made available as of 2025.
One of the research areas focuses on the subject of travel. Based on metadata and the content of the letters, Jan Dantyszek’s itinerary has been reconstructed (a list of source-documented, dated places of stay; Lat. itinerarium – a travel account), comprising over 2,700 source-confirmed entries. The online publication Ioannes Dantiscus’ Itinerary was prepared using the open-source software TEI Publisher, which works in conjunction with the eXist database. Work is currently underway to convert the Corpus to this environment to ensure security, interoperability, and data longevity.
Correspondence as a Database
Through the use of digital tools, the editing of correspondence offers more than just a text for reading. It also becomes a dataset: a collection of information about people, places, relationships, and time. It enables the tracking of contact networks, travel rhythms, and the dynamics of the exchange of ideas – elements that are difficult to capture in traditional scholarly editing.
↑ Jan Dantyszek (based on Ph. Galle, Imagines L. doctorum virorum, qui bene de studiis literarum meruere, cum singulorum elogijs, Antwerp, 1587, ill. 5)
↓ FROM THE TOP. 1 Corpus of Ioannes Dantiscus’ Texts & Correspondence / Korpus Tekstów i Korespondencji Jana Dantyszka, source code fragment – screenshot 2 Ioannes Dantiscus Itinerary Web Map / Interactive map of Jan Dantyszek’s Itinerary – screenshot 3 Ioannes Dantiscus Itinerary, screenshot 4 The address of a letter from Hernán Cortés to Jan Dantyszek, Mexico, August 1, 1531, with Dantyszek’s autograph annotation, National Museum in Krakow, the Czartoryski Library, call number IV 1596, p. 302, fragment