This document discusses creating a digital edition of letters written by Vespasiano da Bisticci, an 15th century Florentine copyist, as linked open data. It describes annotating the letters with embedded XML/TEI markup linking to RDF files about persons, manuscripts, and terms. Relationships between these entities are represented in the RDF files to create a knowledge base. The goal is to expose the letters and associated data as linked open data using domain ontologies and existing datasets to weave the information into the larger web of data.

1. STRUMENTI E APPLICAZIONI
PER LA DIVULGAZIONE
DEL PATRIMONIO LINGUISTICO
E CULTURALE
23 aprile 2014, Università di Bologna
24 aprile 2014, Accademia della Crusca
LE EDIZIONI DIGITALI NEL SOLCO DEL
WEB SEMANTICO.
UN CASO DI STUDIO: VESPASIANO DA
BISTICCI E LE SUE LETTERE
Francesca Tomasi
Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica
[Dept. Of Classical Philology and Italian studies]
University of Bologna

2. DIGITAL (ELECTRONIC TEXTUAL)
EDITING (SCHOLARSHIP)
 Digital editing as a process: the model of the text; the
relationships between textual elements; the extra-textual or
trans-textual component (intertext, paratext, metatext, ipertext,
architext).
 Diplomatic/normalized edition – single witness:
 transcription (e.g. forms of letters, punctuation, capitalization,
structure, abbreviations, corrections and emendations);
 internal relationships (e.g. a person and an event; a place
and a date);
 comment – external relationships (harvesting re-sources).
 Levels of hermeneutical approach:
Annotation=Markup. Embedded XML/TEI markup
Latent relationships=context/domain. Linked network
The dialogue. From text to the Web. Against silos…

3. SEMANTIC WEB: TECHNOLOGIES
AND A CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Web
evolution
SemWeb Stacks
Tim Berners-Lee
“The Semantic Web will enable machines
to COMPREHEND semantic documents
and data, not human speech and
writings”
SEMANTIC: Expressing meaning –
Knowledge representation –
Ontologies – Agents – Evolution of
knowledge
Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate
Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor.
Tim Berners-Lee, with Mark Fischetti. Harper San
Francisco, 1999

4. “LOD” - LINKED OPEN DATA - ROLE
Linked Data is about using the Web to connect related data that wasn't previously linked, or using the Web to lower the
barriers to linking data currently linked using other methods. More specifically, Wikipedia defines Linked Data as "a term
used to describe a recommended best practice for exposing, sharing, and connecting pieces of data, information, and
knowledge on the Semantic Web using URIs and RDF.” http://linkeddata.org
LOD CLOUD
The Linked
Data
Principles
1. Use URIs as
names for
things
2. Use HTTP
URIs so that
people can
look
up those
names
3. When
someone looks
up a URI,
provide
useful RDF
information
4. Include RDF
statements
that link to
other URIs so
that they can
discover
related things

5. VESPASIANO, LETTERS
A DIGITAL EDITION
 A digital annotated (XML/TEI) collection of letters form the XV century
sent/received to/by the florentine copyist Vespasiano da Bisticci.
 A web environment that focuses on: persons mentioned in the
documents; classical latin and greek manuscripts requested, copied,
mentioned or proposed to/by Vespasiano da Bisticci’s school;
descriptions of the manuscripts.
 The purpose is to identify persons related to manuscripts in order to
expose datasets of people related to manuscripts, these last
described by technical words.
 The XML/TEI annotation (persons, manuscripts and technical terms)
has been realized with embedded markup (@ref=”URI”) pointing to
stand-off RDF file (with assertion) and controlled form of the names
(VIAF, LCA, Geonames, etc.) for managing attributes values.
 The final aim is to expose the letters as Linked Open Data by using
domain ontologies.

6. http://vespasianodabisticciletters.unibo.it/lettere/lettera9.html
http://vespasianodabisticciletters.unibo.it/
http://vespasianodabisticciletters.unibo.it/indici_persone.html

7. A SAMPLE
carta conservata nella Busta 85, ad vocem Vespasiano da Bisticci, Sez.
Aut. Sec. xii-xviii, Raccolte Piancastelli, Biblioteca Comunale «A. Saffi», Forlì
Clarissime atque
eloquentissime Vir, post
recomendatione premissa.
Il Prinio e lla Decha sono di
tutto finiti in buona forma, in
modo credo vi piaceranno
sommamente. Aregli
arechati chostassù ma alla
porta non mi arebbono
lasciato venire. Mandate uno
chon qualche panno da
involgergli,
che non si guastino. Meser
Piero Strozi ha finite
l’abreviationi e holle dato a
Pipo <che> le minî, e subito
si legaranno. Ad voi mi
rachomando.
In Firenze, adì 23 di giugno
1458.
Vespasiano di Filippo
[a tergo]
<Clariss>imo atque
elo<quenti>ssimo viro Piero
<di Chosi>mo de’ Medici,
Ma<iori su>o honorando.
We notice: persnames (Vespasiano di Filippo, Piero di Chosimo de’ Medici, Piero Strozi, Pipo), places (Firenze), dates (june
23 1458), latin texts and authors (Prinio, Decha), technical lexicon (minî, legaranno).
We understand that: Piero de’ Medici requested to Vespasiano laboratory a Pliny and the Decades and that the copy has
been made before june 1458. We know also that Piero Strozzi finished the Epitomi and delivered the volume to Pipo, which is
identifiable in Filippo Torelli, for the illumination and then the binding will be realized.

8. THE EMBEDDED XML/TEI MARK-UP
ns:metadata + rdf files#XML:ID + string + ns:metadata
Persname
<tei:persname ref=”people.rdf#PS”>Piero Strozi</tei:persname>
<tei:persname ref=”people.rdf#FT”>Pipo</tei:persname>
<tei:persname ref=”people.rdf#VdB”>Vespasiano di Filippo</tei:persname>
<tei:persname ref=”people.rdf#PdM”>Piero di Chosimo de’ Medici</tei:persname>
Manuscripts
<tei:bibl ref=”manuscripts.rdf#P_SN>
<tei:author>Prinio</tei:author>
</tei:bibl>
<tei:bibl ref=”manuscripts.rdf#L_D_III”>
<tei:title>Decha</tei:title>
</tei:bibl>
<tei:bibl ref=”manuscripts.rdf#L_D_IV_E”>
<tei:title>abreviationi</tei:title>
</tei:bibl>
Lexicon
<tei:term type=”binding” ref=”lexicon.rdf#leg”>legaranno</tei:term>
<tei:term type=”illumination” ref=”lexicon.rdf#min”>minî</tei:term>

9. RELATIONSHIPS:
RDF SUPPORT TO STAND-OFF
ANNOTATION
SUBJECT PREDICATES OBJECT
people.rdf#PdM
URI:
http://vespasianodabisticciletters/
people/PdM
has_normalized_form Medici, Piero de’:
Dbpedia: http://eu.dbpedia.org/page/Piero_de_Medici
VIAF: http://viaf.org/viaf/25406033
has_variant_forms Piero,
Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici,
Principe di Firenze
is_owner_of manuscripts.rdf#P_SN
manuscripts.rdf#L_D_III
manuscripts.rdf#L_D_IV_E
SUBJECT PREDICATES OBJECT
manuscripts.rdf#P_SN
URI:
http://vespasianodabisticciletters/
manuscripts/P_SN
has_normalized_form Plinio, Storia naturale
is_requested_by
is_owned_by
is_copied_by
is_illuminated_by
people.rdf#PdM
people.rdf#PdM
people.rdf#PS
people.rdf#FT
SUBJECT PREDICATES OBJECT
lexicon.rdf#min
URI:
http://vespasianodabisticciletters/
lexicon/min
has_normalized_form miniare, miniatura, miniato
is_referred_to manuscripts.rdf#L_D_IV_E

10. THE KNOWLEDGE BASE
Ontologies: CIDOC-CRM, SKOS, DC, FRBR, EDM, PROV-O, FOAF….
SWEO Community Project: Linking Open Data on the Semantic Web
http://www.w3.org/wiki/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData/DataSets
<persName xml:id=”LdM”>Lorenzo de‘ Medici</persName>
• xml:id=LdM
• Access_key: Medici, Lorenzo de’
• Dbpedia URI: http://it.dbpedia.org/page/Lorenzo_de%27_Medici
• VIAF permalink: http://viaf.org/viaf/54169908
• Father-of: Piero de’ Medici (URI)
• Born-in: Firenze (URI)
• Died-in: Firenze (URI)
• Went-in: Roma (URI) – function: marriage
• Trip-to: Venezia (URI) – function: military mission
• Born-when: 1449 (xsd:integer)
• Died-when: 1492 (xsd:integer)
• Iconography: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lorenzo+de
%27+medici&um=1&ie=UTF-
8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=_1vcUOeAJqeI4ASikoCYBQ&biw=1146&bih=70
9&sei=AVzcUNnjIOXV4gTVloHQCQ
• Biography: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de'_Medici
• Author-of: http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Canti_carnascialeschi_
%28Lorenzo_de%27_Medici%29
• Attested-in: http://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maria

11. VESPASIANO
DA BISTICCI
ON
DBPEDIA.IT
New ontology
(dbpprop-it)
Existent
ontologies (e.g.
DcTerms, FOAF)

12. VESPASIANO
ON
DBPEDIA.ORG
2014
LODLIV
1999 THE PROPOSAL E

13. THE FRAMEWORK
Letters
(XML/TEI Resources)
Persons/Manuscripts/Lexicon
RDF data
Annotations
The cloud
RDF data
Domain ontology
Existent ontologies
extraction
computer-aided
annotation
specified according to
specified according to
specified according to
Open Annotation
Data Model (OA)
Mappings to other datasets

14. FINAL SUMMARY
Ontology reuse;
Definition of new classes and predicates;
Ontology as the basis for LOD creation;
Stand-off markup and OA data model;
LOD cloud population;
Mapping to other datasets

15. WORKS
 Barbera M., Meschini F., Morbidoni C., Tomasi F. (2012). Annotating digital libraries and
electronic editions in a collaborative and semantic perspective, in Proceedings of the 8th
Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries (IRCDL 2012) - Revised Selected
Papers. Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) 354, Heidelberg,
Germany, Springer, pp. 45-56.
 F. Tomasi (2012). Digital editions between embedded markup and external
representation. A case study: Vespasiano da Bisticci's Letters, in Dall'Informatica
umanistica alle culture digitali, a cura di G. Crupi, F. Ciotti. Quaderni Digilab. II, Sapienza
Università Editrice, Roma, pp. 201-218.
 F. Tomasi (2013). L'edizione digitale e la rappresentazione della conoscenza. Un
esempio: Vespasiano da Bisticci e le sue lettere, «Ecdotica» 2012, 9, pp. 264-286.
 F. Tomasi (2013). Le edizioni digitali come nuovo modello per dati d'autorità concettuali,
«JLIS.it» 4.2 (2013).
 F. Tomasi, F. Vitali (2013). DH-CASE 2013 - Collaborative Annotations in Shared
Environments: Metadata, Vocabularies and Techniques in the Digital Humanities, New
York, ACM, pp. 1-113.
 F. Tomasi, F. Ciotti, M. Lana, F. Vitali, S. Peroni, D. Magro (2013). Dialogue and linking
between TEI and other semantic models, in: The linked TEI: Text Encoding in the Web,
Roma, DIGILAB Sapienza University & TEI Consortium, pp. 145 – 158.
 F. Tomasi, F. Ciotti, M. Lana, F. Vitali, S. Peroni, D. Magro (2014). Methods and
experiences in cultural heritage enhancement. LOD2014. Linked Open Data: where are
we? Roma, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Thursday 20th February 2014,
http://www.w3c.it/events/2014/lod2014/program.html

16. GRAZIE!
FRANCESCA
LOD 5 STARS