If you want to read a text, two options are available:
1. On any page of the website, click 'searchable works' in the left hand side column, just below the heading 'search'. This leads to a new page; the central part of the page lists the works that are available for searching, reading and downloading. The works are ordered by date.
If you click on the title of a work, the main section of the webpage displays the general notice on the chosen work. In order to read the text you must click 'read the text', which is to be found in the top area of the main section, below the title of the work, the name of the author and the date. This leads to a new page displaying the text of the work. The left column of this web provides the interactive index of the work, divided into books, chapters and paragraphs, as relevant; you may move freely within the text by clicking the sections you need to consult;
2. On any page of the website, click 'works' in the left hand side column, just below the heading 'browse and download'. Chose a type of sorting:
Click on the title of the chosen work. The work is available for reading if the icon appears next to the title.
From this point onwards, the steps for reading the text are identical to those described under section (1), second paragraph.
In order to download a complete text, you must register with the website; for registering see the fourth section of this document.
Once registered, you have access to the general informative entry on the work; the list of possible downloads is located in the top area (below the title, the author name, the date and the Read the text button), The project envisages the presence of five types of text:
- TXT: a text that does not have any special formatting; use the encoding Unicode-UTF8 on opening the text. The text has some encoding element, such as the presence of italicised sections in the Latin text. For correct visualisation, we recommend using a text editor, as e. g. Writer (Open Office) or Microsoft Word.
- TEI: it allows you to download an XML formatted text. The structure (book, chapter, and paragraph divisions, etc.) and the most important philological interventions (cruces, deletions, supplements) are described according to TEI standards.
- PDF: it allows you to download a PDF text, ready for binding, reading and annotation (the right hand side margin is wide).
- BETA: it allows you to download a text compatible with textual search software designed for the PHI and TLG corpora released on CD-ROM. If you want to use such software for searches on the digilibLT texts made available on the website, we recommend downloading the ISO file from this page. The ISO file will include the complete set of texts, ready to be burned on a CD-ROM.
- E-PUB: it allows you to download a text in eBook format. Software for reading eBooks in e-pub format is available for all kinds of hardware: smartphone, tablet, netbook, notebook, desktop.
The authors and works that will be included in the collection are listed in the Canon and in the pages of the sections works and authors. Not all works are available at the moment: the website is a work in progress. The 'works' and 'authors' pages lists all the works that will be included in the website and will be searchable and downloadable collection. On completion of the project, this list will coincide with the Canon. The website includes works by non-Christian, late-antique Latin prose writers. However, one should keep in mind that:
- we include non-doctrinal works by authors who, for their whole life or part of it, adhered to the Christian faith, such as Marius Victorinus or Severinus Boethius;
- we are planning to include the treatise De rhetorica, attributed to Augustin, since it is part of the corpus of Rhetores Latini Minores;
- Terentianus Maurus' work De littera, de syllaba, de pedibus is included on account of its great importance in the context of Scriptores de re metrica;
- legal corpora (Corpus Iuris Ciuilis; Codex Theodosianus) and authors of legal works are not included in the project at this stage; they may be included later;
- poets and poetic works are not present; we are planning to include them at a later stage.
No special requirements are needed for the text to display properly. For increasing or decreasing font sizes, click the relevant buttons, present on all pages.
All classical texts included in the website are written according to the Unicode - UTF 8 encoding. This applies both to Latin text, which represent the majority of texts present in the website, and to the sections in Greek. Starting from Windows XP, system fonts (Arial, Times, Courier) offer a correct display of Greek and Latin texts written according to the Unicode - UTF 8 encoding. If, for some reason, your computer does not display Greek words correctly, it may be useful to download and install the Cardo font, available from the page 'Other resources / Fonts and software to download'. You must install the Cardo font for the correct display of special symbols used in some technical and scientific Latin works.
Texts in TXT format constitute a special case. The TXT format was not designed primarily for reading (see above, section 1, 'How can I read the texts?'), but rather for studying texts thanks to a variety of software tools designed for language and textual analysis. However, if you prefer to read the text in TXT format on screen, the browser may not be able to offer a correct display of all characters. In order to fix this problem, you must direct the browser to adopt the UTF-8 encoding:
The texts present on the digilibLT website follow the best and most up-to-date critical editions; they have been revised twice for accuracy and have been subject to further checks during the TEI markup stage.
Texts marked according to the TEI standard allow readers to find the position of a passage within the whole text and to perform textual searches and analyses by using TEI tags to narrow down the search to specific parts of the text. In the encoding now present on the website, TEI tags mark passages considered corrupt by editors (cruces), supplements, deletions, Greek words, verse passages (in prosimetra), formatting.
At present it is not easy to find software that enables users to analyse texts and narrow down searches by using TEI tags. The CATMA software (see the link in the 'Other resources/Fonts and software to download' section) is an excellent tool for textual searches and analyses of this type. See the documents on the CATMA website for instruction on how to use this software.
Search functions are accessible from the 'Search' area found in the left hand side of all pages of the website. Simple and advanced searches in the Latin text are allowed, as well as searches in the bibliographical database.
You can perform simple searches from any page of the website: write the word you want to look up in the small box located under 'search' and then click 'find'. Simple searches operate on all the Latin texts present on the website. The complete, up-to-date list of all the searchable texts present on the website can be found by clicking 'searchable works' in the left hand side column of each page.
If we look up canis we get this screenshot :
The left hand side of the screen lists the text types (medicine, historiography, etc.) and the dates of works containing the word we have searched for. Text types and date can be used to narrow down the search results. For instance, if one clicks on 'saec. III', only third century AD texts are displayed. If one clicks on the small x appearing next to the name of the selected category the selection is cancelled and one goes back to the initial full results.
On the right hand side of the page, you can find the list of works containing the word that has been looked up. The works are ordered by the number of occurrences of the searched word, starting from the work that contains the highest number of occurrences.
Several options are available:
You can perform simple searches from any page of the website. The advanced search screenshot is as follows:
The top area of the page allows you to select the words for the search. You may search for one or more words either as an exact phrase (quamuis posset) or by linking them with AND or OR. AND means that the two words must occur together, in any order, within a maximum of 20 words. OR means that the two words must not occur together, in any order, within a maximum of 20 words. The website searches for the word in the whole text, as a predefined option; one may chose to look for the word in work titles, verse passages, or Greek passages only. A special editor is available for Greek searches (see the relevant section below).
The bottom section of the page allows users to select works to be searched. The selection criteriaare:
Users should obviously avoid narrowing down the search with excessively complex criteria, which may end ruling out all the texts presents in the collection.
The bibliography search window offers a variety of simple and advanced options. You can search for a bibliographical item by:
Results are displayed in a list ordered by the names of modern authors. If users click the name of the author, the full bibliographical entry appears in a pop-up windows.
If you know how to use Unicode for Greek input, simply type the Greek word or words in the search box. Do not insert accents and breathings: they are ignored by the search tool. For truncated words, use an asterisk: e.g. if you search for μαλασσ*, you will find a list of all Greek words beginning with μαλασσ.
If you do not know how to write Unicode Greek in your browser, go to the advanced search page and click Greek editor. A pop-up window appears. At that point you have two options.
(1) Click Greek letters. A large Greek keyboard appears. Type the relevant word or words, copy the Greek text you have written, and paste it into the search box in the advanced search windows.
(2) Click Keyboard help, and type the Greek word or words in Beta code (for a guide to this encoding see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_code). Copy the Greek text you have written, and paste it into the search box in the advanced search windows.
The section 'Other resources' gives access to a number of useful research tools on late antiquity. It can be accessed from the homepage: see the bottom section of left hand side column. The section includes four sub-sections:
In this section, users will find a progressively increasing number of PDF files for free download, divided into two types:
(a) Works on late antiquity by Italo Lana (1921-2002), by courtesy of the Lana family and of the publishing houses that issued the original editions.
(b) Other works on late antiquity which are out of copyright or have been made available by authors and/or publishers.
If you click on the title of the work, the text will display in your browser. If you use the secondary button in your mouse, you can chose the 'save as' option and download the file. A large file may require a long time to display or download, esp. if the connection is slow. In general, it takes a significantly longer time to display a PDF file in your browser than to download it.
The Canon page contains the list of late-antique authors of non-Christian prose works included in the website. It is so far limited to letters A and B. It also records the standard edition for each text. New versions of the canon will be periodically released in order to include new authors or works, and/or to update the information included in the extant entries.
The list is published in PDF format. You can access it simply by clicking on the title.
From this section you can download font and software that can be useful for best display of the website pages. In particular, you can find hyperlinks to websites from which you can download:
- Cardo, a TTF font that is necessary for the correct display of special symbols present in some of the Latin texts. See also above, First section, '4. Texts do not display properly. Why?'
- the CATMA software, which will allow you to use TEI tags to narrow down textual analyses and searches to specific part of the Latin texts. A handbook accompanies the software and explains how it was conceived and how it works.
In order to download the files, click the hyperlinks that will take you to the relevant web pages.
This section, still in progress, will allow you to download all the Latin texts present on the website in Beta code format (PHI/TLG). Users will be able to search the entire database and to integrate it with the PHI corpus, using the same software they use for PHI cdrom #5.3 (e.g. Diogenes).
You can access the section 'Late antiquity on the web' from the horizontal menu, on the top of the homepage. It contains the URL of a number of websites, mostly on late antiquity, offering textual searches not available from digilibLT.
You may freely use the website, but registration is required if you want to download texts in any of the available formats. Registration also allows you to decide whether you wish to subscribe to our newsletter, which gives concise updates on the publication of new texts. Registered users are under no obligations of any sort, nor are they required to pay anything at all. Pursuant to the legislation in force, personal data are carefully protected and are not communicated to third parties. Users may consult the DigilibLT privacy policy at the address https://digiliblt.uniupo.it/privacy.php.
Registration requirements:
- You are asked to provide some basic personal data which, in aggregated form, will be used to prepare periodical reports documenting how much, how often and from which countries in the world the website is accessed. The reports will be mostly, but not exclusively, addressed to the main financing body, Regione Piemonte (Italy).
- You are asked to state whether you are interested in receiving our newsletter, which gives concise updates on the publication of new texts on the website.
- You are asked to agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of use of the website, and to accept the Creative Commons licence, regulating the download and utilisation of the website contents. If you do not accept the licence, registration is impossible, and so is downloading texts from the site.
You can email the project managers. If you click 'Contacts and feedback' in the horizontal menu at the top of the homepage, you will find a contact form. Please fill it out if you find errors in the Latin texts published on the website, or if you want to ask for further information, or suggest a presentation of the project at your research and/or teaching institution, or for other proposals.