Well-defined Critical Editing: The ‘Manuscribus’ Platform for Manuscript Transcription, Annotation, and auto-Collation

Abstract

Citing examples from scripts and manuscripts, this paper delineates Transcription and Annotation
as essential processes in a well-defined Critical Editing workflow, an Ontology-based
approach recently applied in manuscript analysis. It introduces the Manuscribus editor, an
innovative and collaborative online platform for manuscript Transcription, Annotation, Collation,
and Critical Editing, developed at the Laboratory for the Management of Greek and
Latin Digital Resources, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). Manuscribus,
launched in mid-2023 and anticipated for public release by late 2025 or early 2026,
aims to revolutionize scholarly work with manuscripts. Manuscribus also facilitates Collation
as a form of logical inference – thus leading to a well-defined Critical Edition – based
on Ontology for Handwritten Text (OHT), a BFO-based ontology developed at the NKUA,
which forms the core technology of the Manuscribus platform.

Key-words: Palaeography, Critical Editing, Textual Criticism, Stemmatics, Formal Ontologies.