Junius Institute introduces “Digital Companions”
Last week, the Junius Institute announced a thrilling new project called “Digital Companions”. Jordan Ballor explains:
The idea for this project is to produce open-access digital editions of translations, enhanced with specialized and integrated hyperlinks, paired with the original language text.
As a matter of fact, the first “digital companion” is already available free of charge from the institute’s website. Unsurprisingly, it is a work by the institute’s namesake Franciscus Junius, namely his treatise De vera theologia (1613, engl. On True Theology). This work has recently been translated by David C. Noe (associate professor of classics at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI). In 2014, Noe’s translation was published by RHB together with a foreword from the pen of Richard Muller and an introduction by Willem van Asselt. Thanks to the Junius institute, this translation can now be read side by side with the Latin original. Moreover, the digital companion also includes embedded hyperlinks to other primary sources freely available online.
For more information click here.
Interpreting early modern facts of publication
In this post, I want to quickly mention a few online resources that I found helpful when it comes to interpreting the facts of publication on the title pages of Early Modern prints.
Latin place names
- The Orbis Latinus online is a digital edition of a book published in 1909 by Johann G.T. Grässe. It is a dictionary of Latin place names giving the modern (German) equivalent.
- The online database of R.L. Maxwell is more comprehensive as it draws not only on the information in the (updated) Orbis Latinus (1972), but also on the work of R.A. Peddie (1932).
- The CERL Thesaurus is an very comprehensive database. Among other information, it contains place names “with variant name forms in Latin and other languages, including ficticious name forms.” For the city of Leiden, for instance, this database returns more than sixty variants.
Early modern printers
- For early modern printers situated in the German-speaking area, the Christoph Reske’s book Die Buchdrucker des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts im deutschen Sprachgebiet is an indispensable resource. A good part of it can be previewed (and searched!) on GoogleBooks.
- A fairly old, but still valuable resource is A.M. Ledeboer’s list of printers, booksellers and publishers in the Netherlands (1872). It is available on GoogleBooks here.
- The database created and maintained by the University Library in Utrecht contains not only the standardized names of early modern printers (up to 1801), but also much additional information.
- The CERL Thesaurus also contains information on printers etc.
