Humanities computing activities in Italy

Abstract

I f by circulation one means large-scale application, we must agree that in Italy the use of the computer for the analysis of linguistic data and in general as an aid in humanistic studies and in the social sciences is rather recent. In fact, it is only in these past three or four years that the economic and psychological difficulties have been overcome-difficulties which had been delay ing the acquaintance of Italian scholars with automatic tools of research. In the area of the exact sciences, particularly in the mathematical and physical disciplines, the use of electronic methods has always paralleled that of other countries, even though the number of research centers was and still is today somewhat small. The establishment of the Electronic Calculation Center (CNUCE) at the University of Pisa in 1965 has been most welcome for both the scientific and humanistic disciplines. For the latter one might say that the center gathers and coordinates virtually all the research conducted in Italy by the use of the computer. Against such slowness of diffusion on a large scale we have, on the other hand, the precious interest which Italy experienced for automation. There is no doubt, in fact, that the planning of an Index Thomisticus to be completed with automatic equipment, and the creation of the Automation Center for Linguistic Analysis (CAAL) in Gallarate places Professor Roberto Busa among the pioneers in computing activities in the entire world. The publication of the small volume, Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Hymnorum ritualium Varia specimina concordatiarum, with a "first example of word index automatically compiled and printed by IBM punched card machines," dates back to 1951. The refining of the Index, which has as its object of analysis the entire Corpus Thomisticum (more than 10 million words, 150,000 forms, 30,000 lemmata) is now nearing its completion. Such perfecting has been long in coming, to be sure. We cannot forget, however, that Professor Busa did not find the course charted which he began so many years ago, but that he himself had to explore it, little by little, with the help of his assistants. In order to hasten the completion of the work and its publication, the Center at Gallarate has ceased its activity since the latter part of 1966 and Professor Busa has