Abstract
The project is dedicated to the creation of a comprehensive, open-access digital commentary on one of Carlo Emilio Gadda's major works, L'Adalgisa. Disegni milanesi (Florence, Le Monnier, 1943). This is the first digital commentary on a work by Gadda, which aims to become a point of reference in the field of digital editions, well beyond the scope of Gadda studies. The project has three main objectives: the creation of a space, called Spazio Adalgisa, suitable for hosting the digital commentary on the literary narrative text; the commentary on the selected case study, L'Adalgisa. Disegni milanesi di Carlo Emilio Gadda; the design of integrated tools for the understanding and interpretation of Gadda's text, from the timeline of his life and works to the Glossary of Milanese Gadda, from the graph of relationships between characters to integrated thematic files and the primary and secondary bibliography relating to the case study.
Results achieved
Since the platform was developed, in accordance with the Project Plan, by the agency Net7, and since it was not possible – due to the heirs’ refusal to grant permission – to publish the annotated text either in full or in part, the Bologna office has dedicated the work of research fellow Luca Mazzocchi to annotating the last two drawings in the collection: Al Parco, una sera di maggio and Adalgisa, the eponymous drawing. The U3 PI’s commentary on the short story Notte di luna(Moonlit Night), on the other hand, represents a significant innovation, as it combines two distinct perspectives: that of the text’s first draft in Racconto italiano di ignoto del Novecento (Italian Story by an Unknown Author of the Twentieth Century), and that of the text’s reworking as the prologue to Adalgisa*, based on the critical hypothesis that Gadda intended it to serve as an accessus to the entire work—a necessary counterbalance to the structural fragmentation of the Disegni. The experience in digital philology gained at the Bologna unit has been fundamental to the development of the text’s genesis and the visualisation of genetic maps. The unit runs a basic course on Scholarly Editing and Digital Textuality and an advanced course on Digital Scholarly Editions, both of which are international programmes, where innovative digital projects relating to the interpretation and annotation of texts are developed. Students on the two courses will form the focus groups for testing the platform, alongside trials carried out with secondary school pupils in a workshop led by Luca Mazzocchi. In conjunction with the digital commentary, the coordinator of the Bologna unit has also created the Gadda Map, a visual representation of the city of Milan that allows users to view the locations mentioned in Gadda’s Adalgisa, his technical essays and his letters. The project, which is linked on the Spazio Adalgisa platform, provides a useful visual complement to the annotated text. Furthermore, the Bologna unit has created the virtual exhibition Cantieri di Gadda, which hosted, within the Digital Library section of the Department of Classical and Italian Philology, the virtual version of the exhibition at the virtual version of the exhibition staged in 2024 at the Politecnico di Milano, which can be easily viewed online. The links with Spazio Adalgisa are countless, as the exhibition features a section of photographs dedicated to Milan, and a section specifically devoted to the text of Disegni milanesi, with magazines, objects and texts on display that physically bear witness to the material reality of the Milanese milieu satirised by Gadda. Furthermore, thanks to the collaboration with the DHArc (Digital Humanities Advanced Research Centre) at the University of Bologna, the Spazio Adalgisa project has been able to benefit from the synergy with the Open Gaddaproject: a platform, currently under development, which organises all the author’s metadata; for the time being, it has been included as an external link to the project, but in future it may be integrated, enabling the automatic retrieval of all texts, drafts, manuscripts, typescripts, printed works, library volumes and the primary and secondary bibliography relating to Adalgisa. This metadata will enable the development of a comprehensive timeline, allowing users to trace the author’s biographical and intellectual journey, in addition to the existing timeline created by the project’s U3 coordinator, which outlines the key events in Gadda’s life, linked to the genesis and writing of Adalgisa, but expanded to include the books purchased and consulted, as well as all letters sent and received, thereby enabling the reconstruction of a web of family and friendship ties that form a genuine network essential to the analysis of Gadda’s short stories. Overall, therefore, the results achieved by Bologna RU3 3 of Gadda’s L’Adalgisa’s commentary, of the project are to be regarded as highly satisfactory, having overcome the difficulties encountered during the first year of research – namely the heirs’ refusal to grant permission to use the text – and having developed a platform which, by placing the hermeneutic act at its heart, has enhanced the commentary, making it a focal point from which the text radiates, a construction of relational data – such as the network of relationships between characters or the genesis of individual stories – which have demonstrated, for the first time, the effectiveness of applying Digital Humanities to literature, and in particular to texts by authors still protected by copyright.Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Paola Maria Carmela Italia
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica
Coordinatore:
Università per Stranieri di SIENA(Italy)
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 60.540,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
17/10/2023
Data di fine:
28/02/2026
