PRIN 2022
“M.A.R.E.: Manuscripts and books from Asia Reaching Europe. A semantically enhanced digital library mapping Asian books circulation along the Silk Maritime Routes”.
University of Enna “Kore”, University of Pisa, University of Salerno
The M.A.R.E. project investigates the intricate history of cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe by analyzing a corpus of texts, manuscripts, and books in various oriental and classical languages, such as Chinese, Arabic, Armenian, Latin, and Greek. By digitizing and conducting textual analyses on significant case studies within a broad chronological framework (700–1700), the project seeks to reconstruct and make accessible the pathways by which these texts arrived in Europe and, in some cases, continued to circulate through translations. These materials, which traversed the relatively less-explored Maritime Silk Routes, reveal a vast network of intercultural interactions that evolved alongside traditional trade exchanges.
The project’s primary goal is to create a digital platform that catalogs the selected cases and maps the historical and geographical routes associated with these texts, whether documented within the texts themselves or physically traversed by them. Inspired by Ulrich’s concept of “material things as entry points into history” (2015), this platform will highlight enduring connections between Asia and Europe, offering new perspectives on these historical interactions.
In alignment with the “Third Mission” of universities, the project also aims to construct a digital library with user-friendly visual tools, making traditionally specialized materials accessible to a broader, interdisciplinary audience.
This two-year project will be executed by an interdisciplinary team of historians, philologists (specializing in Chinese, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Latin, and Slavonic), and computer scientists. The first phase will focus on material analysis and platform design, followed by data integration and website usability enhancement in the second phase. By uniting diverse research fields into a cohesive, interactive corpus, the M.A.R.E. project aims to advance diachronic comparative studies and foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the humanities and sciences.