Agenda

04 Nov 2026 17:00

Timelines. Peter of Poitiers' Compendium historiae and its Digital Edition

Sala Morelli, Malcanton Marcorà

Andrea Worm 
University of Tübingen
Timelines. Peter of Poitiers' Compendium historiae and its Digital Edition

 

Bio

Andrea Worm is Professor of Art History at the University of Tübingen with a focus on Medieval Art. She defended her PhD in Augsburg, completed her habilitation (second book) in Graz, and held research positions in Cambridge, Princeton, and Jerusalem. Her work explores medieval book culture including both manuscript illumination and incunables. She is an expert in the visual organisation of knowledge and in the representation and conceptualisation of time and history, and also has a strong interest in the apocalpyse and eschatological ideas in the Middle Ages.
Her major publications include “Geschichte und Weltordnung” (2021), a monograph dedicated to graphic models of time and space in universal chronicles before 1500, which was fundamental for the international project on Peter of Poitiers’ “Compendium historiae,” funded jointly by German and Austrian research institutions (DFG and FWF), where she acts as Principal Investigator.

Abstract

Peter of Poitiers’ “Compendium historiae in genealogia Christi”, conceived around 1170–1180, presents a linear synopsis of sacred history in a condensed, diagrammatic form. This genealogical graph is of pivotal importance for the development of history graphs and time charts in the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods, not least because the work was immensely popular: it exists in more than 300 copies before 1500. The seminar explores how the “Compendium historiae” organises historical knowledge visually and how its different diagramatic forms reveal a dynamic manuscript tradition of transmission and adaptation. We will also consider the challenges and possibilities of digitally representing a work which is esentially a diagram, including texts, images - and also other diagrams. We will also present “Peter of Poitiers’ Compendium historiae: A Research Platform and Edition,” which includes the first digital scholarly edition of this entire work.

The presentation will be followed by a round table with members of the project Team – Patrick Sahle, Franz Fischer, Agnese Macchiarelli, Andreas Mertgens, and Maria Streicher – in order to extend the discussion of the digital edition and its implications for the study of medieval historical and material culture.

The event is part of the seminar series organized by the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH), Department of Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Language

The event will be held in English

Organized by

VeDPH; DSU

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