Editors, Readers, Translators

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Introduction
Introduction
The Global Thucydides project was conceived to produce the first comprehensive mapping of Thucydides’ receptions on a global scale. It examines the contexts, modes, and motivations that led to Thucydides becoming a prominent subject of scholarly interest and a shared cultural reference worldwide. The project operates within a highly interdisciplinary framework, integrating classical studies and their reception, translation studies, and intellectual history. The database represents one of the project’s key outcomes. It provides a continuously expanding catalogue of translations and commentaries on Thucydides published since the late fourteenth century. Additionally, it includes brief biographies of translators and scholars, along with an interactive map that enables a diachronic reconstruction of Thucydides’ global receptions. The collection of bibliographic material was carried out by Michele Saccomanno in close cooperation with the two principal investigators, Luca Iori and Ivan Matijašić, as well as with the Advisory Board and a group of international collaborators. The principal advantage of this digital database lies in its flexibility and adaptability, offering a versatile tool for bibliographical research accessible to classical scholars, historians, and students of political science – an area where Thucydides holds considerable significance – as well as to any individual with a broad interest in the History of Thucydides and its reception.
Project Leaders
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Luca Iori
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Ivan Matijašić
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Board
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia
Michele Saccomanno
Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy
Corinne Bonnet
Università di Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, Italia
Paulo Butti de Lima
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia
Stefania De Vido
Università di Parma, Italia
Ugo Fantasia
University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
Jakub Filonik
Università di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’, Italia
Chiara Ghidini
Open University
Lorna Hardwick
University of California – Berkeley, USA
Kinch Hoekstra
University of Oxford, UK
Timothy Rood
Cornell University, USA
Jeffrey Rusten
Newcastle University, UK
Federico Santangelo
Diagram
Diagram

In the Global Thucydides project, the research team defined the scholarly structure of the catalogue, the criteria for selecting and organising information, and conducted the collection, verification, and analysis of bibliographical data. Edizioni Ca’ Foscari supported this work with a complementary contribution of design, development, and implementation of the digital infrastructure required for the online publication and consultation of the database.

On the basis of the scholarly specifications provided by the principal investigators, ECF developed a dedicated backend for uploading, managing, and updating data. This involved: defining a data model consistent with the types of records envisaged (editions, translations, commentaries); designing a structured import process based on Excel files supplied by the researchers, including validation, normalisation, and consistency checks; configuring relationships between fields, including the management of geolocation data (lat/long) for map-based visualisation.

In connection with the backend, ECF implemented an internal workflow through EditorialFlow, which acts as a bridge between the data-entry phase (managed by the researchers) and the generation of the published contents. This includes a visual preview system and an internal communication channel for checking data before publication.

The contents are then exposed via a REST API (‘pull’ model) that automatically feeds the public website. On the publication side, ECF developed: a static site generated from the API, optimised to ensure stability and long-term availability of the content; custom templates for the display of individual records; search and filtering features by century, language, and typology; an interactive mapping system with clustered pointers when multiple works are associated with the same location; a module for displaying biographical information linked to individual authors and translators.

The design also provides support for DOIs, view/download tracking, and a clear separation between editorial workflows for projects and those for journals or book series, ensuring that the Global Thucydides workflow operates in a dedicated and isolated environment.

The result is a digital infrastructure tailored to the needs of the scholarly project and designed to allow for continuous updating of the catalogue, thanks to the separation between the data-entry environment, the transformation pipeline, and the publication layer. The entire system is conceived to be extensible to future projects with similar characteristics in the field of digital humanities, where the combination of editorial expertise, data modelling, workflow automation, and API-based publication technologies is required.

Diagram
Data import flow
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