The Project

The conflict between web communication and the objectivity of information is a highly topical issue. One specific manifestation of this conflict arises when rigorous, structured humanistic ‘content’ with a high level of scientific accuracy comes into contact with the Internet. In this case, it is not just a question of the reliability of news, but rather the broader issue of the possible (or impossible) marriage between technology and humanism, between instrumental knowledge and knowledge centered on meaning, between the speed of the production/communication circuit and the slowness of cultural work, based on the ‘Neolithic’ rhythm of long-term maturation.

The challenge that drives Mondadori's venture to produce a digital version of Luigi Pirandello's complete works, under the aegis of the National Edition Commission appointed by MIBACT and chaired by Angelo Pupino, is precisely this: to try to make the web a space for the dissemination and in-depth study (philological, linguistic, critical, educational, and cultural) of great literature, going beyond the usual models of the Internet as a virtual place for the pure archiving of texts and materials, or as a vehicle for websites and blogs aimed at the immediate consumption of opinions and literary facts.

Computer scientists and humanists, engineers and philologists, web managers and critics did not take opposing sides in this case, but worked (and will continue to work) together to create an unprecedented fusion between what is consumed and what lasts, between precision and accessibility, between science and emotion. The underlying idea, which underpins the entire National Edition, is not to do anything reserved for experts, nor to produce dusty and often useless volumes, destined only to be stored on library shelves. The partnership between Oscar Mondadori and the National Edition aims, on the one hand, to print a new, lively, reliable Pirandello that is readable for the general public and, on the other, to create a virtual place where scholars can find a quantity/quality of information and data that has never before been so integrated and powerful, and where simultaneously users, readers, and Pirandello enthusiasts can navigate through words, images, sound tracks, and activities designed primarily for the benefit of schools, their students, and their teachers.

This area of the enterprise is being implemented by the Center for Humanities Informatics at the University of Catania, where a group of computer scientists and young scholars, under our direction, have drawn on Giuseppe Savoca's more than thirty years of experience in the field of what are now called Digital Humanities to create the tools hosted on this site. It is an integrated system in which users will find, in sequence, four main sections:

Manuscripts. This section will host digital (and animated) reproductions of manuscripts and/or typescripts of Pirandello's works, with related transcriptions, allowing for an almost physical contact with Pirandello's workshop and providing, for the first time, a complete and reliable transcription of the witnesses, thanks also to digital restoration techniques. In addition to this, where significant, we also publish reproductions of printed editions in this section.

Editions. This section contains synopses of the different editions of the works (Editions Compared), which instantly highlight the differences between, for example, the 1909 edition of “The Old and the Young” and those of 1913 and 1931, using a system of color coding and highlighting. The synopses are followed by the Editions, where scholars can find all the information on the genesis and modification processes of the texts by the author.


Vocabularies. Here, readers will find comprehensive, lemmatized concordances of Pirandello's works. This means that by entering any word in the search engine (e.g., “radice,” but also “dire,” or “quando” or “ci”), the system will provide all the places where the word occurs in the texts, in its various possible forms (all forms of the verb ‘dire’ – such as “detto,” “diceva,” “hanno detto,” etc. – are grouped under the lemma “dire,” which clearly distinguishes the concordances from the pure formularies found on the web), in addition to indicating the grammatical category of the lemma and calculating the absolute and relative frequencies according to the following scheme:

6953 – radice, sf, 4, 0,00265 

VG I7 0173 2 linfa nei rami degli alberi per le radici; e qua e là per le crepe erano spuntati

VG I8 0189 1 noi o appassite: passioni che hanno radici in un terreno che noi ignoriamo,

VG II2 0281 4 trovarvi un po' di terra da gettarvi le radici?

VG II5 0348 6 a rinsertarsi, a riaffiggersi alla radice, da cui s'era strappato;

Homographs are also distinguished (for example, “canto” as “corner” from ‘canto’ as “the act of singing”). The editions of works published in the Edizione Nazionale or in the Oscar Mondadori series are agreed upon. For other editions, lists of specific forms are provided, i.e., forms typical of an edition, which are therefore not included in the agreed text (for example, this section includes forms from I vecchi e i giovani 1909 and I vecchi e i giovani 1931 that are not also common to I vecchi e i giovani 1913, the text of the novel published in the Oscar series and agreed upon on the website). The section is completed by lists of forms and headwords by frequency. This allows us to instantly see which words are most common, which are absent, and which adjectives or nouns are most frequently used in Pirandello's works or in a specific work.

Resources. This section is dedicated to readers, young people, educators, teachers, and anyone who wants to enjoy an engaging approach to Pirandello's universe. It contains all the multimedia resources available on the site: teaching tools and activities; texts; audio; videos; graphs and statistics; family trees; timelines; literary topographies. In addition, for each of the works, there are several Educational Paths, which are also itineraries of meaning. The aim is to aid proper understanding and offer a lively update of the texts through the impressive use of multimedia resources. Unpublished archival documents, period films and interviews, fragments of theatrical performances, audio readings, graphs, and maps flow through these highly informative pages.