Medieval and early modern inscriptions crafted before 1650, in Latin and German language, situated in German-speaking areas are at the heart of this project. Inscriptions are significant and unique historical sources because they are often preserved in an authentic state and in their original setting. For the premodern era, script which was affixed to stone, wood, metal, glass as well as textiles…
The research project “Die frühbuddhistischen Handschriften aus Gandhāra: religiöse Literatur an der Schnittstelle von Indien, Zentralasien und China” was established in 2012. On the basis of philological and historical methods, it provides new insight into the early history of Buddhism on its way to becoming a world religion. The project studies manuscripts found in the 1990s in northern Pakistan…
The Coptic-Sahidic Bible is one of the most important literary witnesses of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean. The Coptic Old Testament, which essentially dates back to the 4th century, is one of the earliest and most extensive versions of the Greek Septuagint (LXX). The translation of the Bible into Coptic was source and inspiration for the entire Coptic-Christian literature of Egypt. In…
Since 2004, the long-term project, which had previously been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), has been supervised by the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz, and continues to be carried out in close cooperation with the National Museum in Copenhagen and the Archaeological State Museum of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museums Foundation in Schleswig.
The art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (1864-1945) is one of the most influential international authors in the field to this day. On the occasion of the centenary of the principles (Grundbegtriffe) of art history, Heinrich Wölfflin's collected works are published under the direction of Prof. Dr. Tristan Weddigen and Prof. Dr. Oskar Bätschmann. The fourteen-volume edition will be published by Schwabe…
The scholarly Gotthelf edition, in both its print edition (HKG) - stands for Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe – and digital (dHKG) formats, seeks to facilitate access to the works of Albert Bitzius, the pastor of Lützelflüh, and the popular writer, Jeremias Gotthelf. Our aim is to make his work completely accessible for in-depth study, be that by students, researchers, or the wider circle of an…
Das Forschungsprojekt Johann Caspar Lavater – Historisch-kritische Edition ausgewählter Briefwechsel (JCLB) digitalisiert und erfasst den Bestand der weit über 20'000 Briefe von und an Lavater, um in einer Web-basierten Online-Edition davon ausgewählte Briefwechsel zu edieren und Lavaters gesamte Korrespondenz erstmals synoptisch in ihrer ganzen Komplexität und ihrem Umfang für die Forschung zu…
The “Neue Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe” brings forward Johannes Brahms’ compositional oeuvre in a historical-critical edition. Included are alternative versions, that remained unpublished by the composer, as well as adaptations by the composer of his own and external works. The goal of the edition is the reproduction of authentic texts, which are relieved from typing-, copying, and engraving…
Subject of the research project is the complete critical edition of the two-part treatise on the psychical pneuma written by the Byzantine physician and scholar John Zacharias (about 1275–1328) with a German translation and its contextualization in medical and intellectual history as well as the history of its reception. This work is of central importance especially for the history of psychology,…
The Leipzig edition of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s works is intended to make all accessible compositions, letters and writings as well as all other documents of his artistic work available to the public in a scientifically appropriate form. As a historical-critical edition, it aims to serve research and musical practice in equal measure. The issue is published in 13 series. Approximately 80…
In the course of the Middle Ages, papal deeds developed into an important medium of communication and are therefore of particular historical interest. Scientists from all over the world have been working with these writings for more than 100 years. The research is made possible by a project of the Göttingen Academy, which began in 1896 and has been supported by the Pius Foundation since 1931.…
The name of Dionysius the Areopagite refers to the Athenian, who according to Acts 17:34 was converted by St. Paul’s speech on the Areopagus and then followed him. The name was adopted by a prolific unknown author around 500 A.D., with a vast number of writings based on the tremendous influence of his synthesizing of neo-platonic philosophy and Christian theology. The manuscript tradition is a…
Since 1898 the Law Sources Foundation of the Swiss Lawyers Society edits a collection of law sources which had been created on Swiss territory up to 1798, the Collection of Swiss Law Sources. The Collection contains materials from the early Middle Ages until early modern times (1798). Over 130 volumes, or more than 80'000 pages of source material and comments from all language regions of…
The Egyptian-Coptic language is the human language with the longest documented lifetime, clocking at 4,500 years prior to its extinction. Its vocabulary reflects the knowledge and worldviews of one of the formative cultures of the ancient world. In order to explore the linguistic and cultural evidence of this historical episteme, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and…
Three competing Reformation paradigms emerged in the city of Strasbourg, the duchy of Württemberg (with Tübingen university), and the Electoral Palatinate (with the university of Heidelberg) in the second half of the sixteenth century: an “upper German”, a Lutheran, and a Reformed model, respectively. Each of the three emphasized its distinctiveness, but was inevitably influenced by the other two.…
The staff of the project “Turfanforschung” edits central Iranian and old Turkic texts from the Turfanian text corpus (Turfansammlung). The texts of the “Turfansammlung” originated from the Central Asian oases along the silk road and date from the 7th to the 14th century CE. In the year 1902, the former Prussian Academy of Sciences received a considerable amount of texts from an expedition to East…