demo.fragmentarytexts.org is a site complementary to Fragmentary Texts, which is a blog on “collecting and representing fragments of lost authors and works”.

The aim of this site is to experiment tools and devise methods for representing fragments of lost works, i.e. ancient texts that have survived only through quotations preserved by other authors.

Print collections of fragmentary texts are collections of textual excerpts drawn from many different sources and arranged according to various criteria, such as chronological order or thematic disposition. The length of these excerpts can be significantly different from one edition to another and depends on the editor’s choice. The aim of a digital collection of fragmentary texts is to go beyond the limits of print collections and express fragmentary sources in a more dynamic and interconnected way.

We begin by presenting some examples from the Lives of Plutarch and the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus, whose texts are full of quotations of ancient authors. The aim is to visualize fragments inside their context of transmission, which is the first requirement to understand the origin of a quotation and its meaning.

We have adopted Ajax technology to represent fragments, and this experimental web site has been created using an Open Source CMS enriched with plugins created ad-hoc in order to add visual functionalities.