A DATABASE FOR CAPESTRANO’S CORRESPONDENCE: WHY AND HOW?
A DATABASE FOR CAPESTRANO’S CORRESPONDENCE: WHY AND HOW?

Summary/Abstract: The friar John of Capestrano (1386-1456) was a key figure of the Quattrocento, with a core during his “European Mission” (1451-1456). He was, in his lifetime as (sometimes) still at present a controversial character: Franciscan reformer, jurist, inquisitor, promoter of the Observant movement, Vicar general of the Observance, preacher and a crusader on the occasion of defending Belgrade. It is necessary to definitively overcome apologetic, romantic and ideological interpretations and break through the distorting mirrors at the root of opposing prejudices. The friar’s rich correspondence has been identified as an indispensable starting point not only to read his figure in other terms. In fact, the ‘Capestrano-case’ – if placed in the complex European political and religious contemporary context – proves to be an excellent detector for the intertwining of religious reforms, political perspectives and the process of making Europe at a crucial moment. Two objectives are therefore primary: 1. to study the entire corpus of his correspondence in a critical edition; 2. to process this corpus by making it available to European scholars on an electronic platform. My dissertation is focused on the so-called Italian letters and my challenge is fine-tuning a database to be then applied to the whole corpus.

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