LALALEXiT. Late Latin Lexicon in Transition

Nationalisms and emerging ideologies, migration of peoples, major cultural and political upheavals: Late Antiquity is undoubtedly an age of great change, which shaped European culture in the following centuries. This crucial transition has been well-investigated and well-highlighted by the scholars from a historical, social, economic, and political point of view. However, the following questions still need to be answered: what words did contemporary literary texts precisely use to describe this ongoing transition? Which expressions, in prose and poetry, were entrusted with the task of representing - and interpreting - the change? What was the “Fortleben” of these words, which often became part of the modern literary process and of a heritage of expressions, images and metaphors, contributing to our cultural identity and to the way we think about the world and ourselves? This project aims at answering these questions by creating a new tool for the analysis of the historical and cultural transition of Late Antiquity as described by the literary texts in Latin: LaLaLexiT (Late Latin Lexicon In Transition), the first digital "Latin lexicon of the historical transition in Late Antiquity", built on the basis of a selection of Latin texts, in prose and poetry, dating back from the 3rd to the 7th century AD. LaLaLexit will be an open access website, specifically designed as a two-part tool, each section targeting two different audiences: i) a scientific glossary will offer the results of our research in the form of lemmata organised both alphabetically and thematically, and provided with a scientific commentary; ii) a specific section, named LEXiT!, will address a wider audience, providing: a) didactic units built for and with high schools (to be connected to PCTO projects); b) educational games and a virtual exhibition with reading rooms (to be connected to open days/ freshmen orientation); c) a podcast providing high-profile narrative contents (public engagement: to reach potentially all the citizenship). The roots of the project are to be found in the qualification and in the shared experiences of the Universities involved, which are responsible for two leading Italian projects in the field of digital Latin libraries: Musisque Deoque with its annexed archives (Ca’ Foscari) offers the complete corpus of Latin poetry, with an efficient and refined lexical and metrical search engine. The DigilibLT library (UPO), focused on Tardolatine prose texts, provides a well-organised repertory with exegetical tools (scientific files, bibliography, etc.). The members of the project are specialists in late Latin literature, lexicography, historiography and digital libraries. LaLaLexit is the chance to combine scientific expertise with digital tools for the benefit of the community.