Officina digitale
Research
Officina digitale
Responsabile scientifico: Tiziano Toracca
Officina digitale was supported and funded by the Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage of the University of Udine (DIUM) within the framework of the initiatives promoted during the 2023–2027 period as part of its status as a Department of Excellence. At the proposal stage, the project received expressions of interest from the Centro Studi-Archivio Pasolini (Cineteca di Bologna), the Centro Interdipartimentale di ricerca Franco Fortini in Storia della Tradizione Culturale del Novecento (University of Siena), the Fondazione Camillo Caetani, the Gruppo di ricerca «Officina 900» (University of Parma) and theUnione Culturale Franco Antonicelli. .
In order to achieve its main objective, the project involved dozens of colleagues from various universities, mostly Italian, and required several archival research activities in Bologna, Florence, Pavia, Milan, and Turin. The collection and cataloguing of documentation, as well as editing and proofreading activities, were also supported by Dr Serena Tirelli (through a post-graduate internship project) and by the student Sveva Giordani Ressel (through an internal curricular internship project that I promoted and supervised).
Objectives
The aim of Officina digitale was to produce an open-access digital edition of the journal Officina (1955–1959) for Pendragon Editore, which already holds the publication rights. Following the facsimile edition published in 2004, this new edition of the journal was intended to ensure a completely different form of access—broader, more up to date, and of greater scholarly value—than in the past.
The project envisaged that all the texts published in the fourteen issues of the Bologna-based journal released between spring 1955 and spring 1959 (nos. 1–12, first series; nos. 1–2, second series) would be introduced and commented upon by scholars selected by the scientific coordinator on the basis of their respective research expertise. The digitization and republication of each text appearing in the journal founded by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francesco Leonetti, and Roberto Roversi (later joined on the editorial board by Franco Fortini, Angelo Romanò, and Gianni Scalia) was therefore accompanied by a double explanatory apparatus (an introductory note and “pop-up” commentary notes) designed to guide readers and to contextualize and systematize the texts and their trajectories within the Italian literary field of the second half of the twentieth century.
Where possible, a third level of annotation was also added: some commentary notes link to a range of heterogeneous materials related to the texts being introduced and discussed. These may include manuscripts and typescripts, originals and copies, unpublished materials, variant apparatuses, letters, diary notes, outlines, interviews, notes, photographs, title pages, or other paratexts considered useful for contextualizing the contributions. The edition is introduced by an essay by the editor.
Results in the field of DH
Creation of a digital edition that is open and searchable, available in open access both on the University of Udine platform and on the publisher’s website.
Related Events
A two-day study event dedicated to the new edition of Officina is planned. The first will take place at the University of Udine with the participation of several scholars who contributed to the project (autumn 2026); the second will take place in Bologna (venue to be confirmed) in the presence of the publisher.
