Romanesco 800–1550

Frequently Asked Questions

What texts are included in the database?

Up to now, the database contains all the roman texts listed in D'Achille & Giovanardi, La letteratura volgare e i dialetti di Roma e del Lazio. Bibliografia dei testi e degli studi. I. Dalle origini al 1550 (Rome, Bonacci, 1984). Other texts, discovered since 1984, will be added in a later stage.

Can I suggest a text that is not included in the database?

Yes, definitely! I encourage all scholars to make suggestions so that this database is as inclusive as possible. Anyone who wants to suggest new texts, can contact me.

How is the database structured?

The EER diagram is conceived in order to make the database operational. In summary, each text is conveyed by a physical object, which may be a place, a manuscript, or a printed book (I did not take into account descripta). Each entity has several attributes, which can be null. The relationship 'conveys' has the attribute 'folios' for manuscripts, 'location' for places and 'pages' for prints.

In a second step, I foresee adding modern bibliographic references to texts and objects (cf. the left side of the EER diagram).

How do queries work?

A user can input data to an almost unlimited number of fields. Each field is a filter, and no input means 'everything.' It is required to fill out at least one field. There is no need to enter the exact word: for instance, a query such as 'sonett' in the title, will match the outcomes of both 'sonetto' and 'sonetti'. The special character underscore _ represents a missing character (e.g., the query 'iscrizion_ della chiesa' will match with both 'iscrizione' and 'iscrizioni'). Thus, to match all entries that have, for example, a transcription, the character _ should be used in the 'transcript' field. To match all texts which author is unknown, the exact word 'unknown' needs to be typed in the 'author' field. The database is not case sensitive.