The second module in our curriculum tackled the subject of ‘mapping’, a term that can vary in definition based on the area of focus. To experts like Serena Ferrando and Michael Papio, it might mean a very literal map that holds significant information in a more visual format. Comparatively, Marc Olsen and Massimo Riva might expand the definition to include a detailed view of the text’s spread, identifying underlying patterns and figurative uses of words.

We learned of specific algorithms that are now being applied, and refined, onto thousands of texts from ancient manuscripts; helping to comb through and recognize hidden themes that would not have otherwise been clear. But as we sift through thousands of works, we always run the risk of over accelerating, in terms of mapping and topic modeling, that means that we might overshoot the results of these algorithms, in doing, we can omit hundreds of possible matters.  Queries that aspire to result in figurative or metaphoric instances, might return negligible results, or opposingly neglect related apt information.

Of course, it’s not all overshooting either, these algorithms allow us to analyze massive amounts of texts, plenty more than one could analyze personally in a hundred lifetimes. The methodology might seem bizarre, and even silly at times, but it is an attempt to discover latent messages, hidden throughout the entire body of works by Petrarch or other ancient writers. While this sort of expectation might only come after tens of new refinement stages, it is a much more secure way to gauge the text, in a bias-free manner.

The attempts to visualize a text also tackles a very difficult task, relating the ancient world to the new. Many of the landmarks, locations, or features depicted or written about might have gone with the centuries. So, locating and marking the sites, becomes an ever more daunting task, considering that maps from that era also might not have survived the ages. The module identifies some of the key issues, solutions and discussions/projects pertaining to this idea of algorithmic presented results, many of which use varying categories and types of codes to analyze the different bodies of works.