Huygens ING and Leiden University Libraries present an online edition-in-progress of the letters of Carolus Clusius
Huygens ING and the Scaliger Institute (Leiden University Libraries)
present an ‘edition-in-progress’ of the correspondence of Carolus
Clusius, using the collaborative editing tool eLaborate. Carolus Clusius
(1526-1609) was one of the central figures of the
so-called botanical renaissance of the sixteenth century. His vast
correspondence has already gained considerable attention from biologists
and historians, but a complete edition was never realized.
Huygens ING and the Scaliger Institute made a big step towards a
complete digital edition of the Clusius correspondence by assembling and
digitizing all existing transcriptions of the letters in eLaborate (an
online transcription tool developed by Huygens ING). The
work now includes metadata belonging to all known 1600 letters, scans
of 1170 letters and transcriptions at different stages of completion of
almost 1000 letters. Most of these are written by Clusius and a range of
persons from all social layers with an interest
in natural history, gardening, literature, travel, politics, religion
and everyday life. Take a look at http://
This web edition is not a scholarly edition in the traditional sense.
Due to the many different sources of the (published and unpublished)
transcriptions, the quality of the edition is not uniform. Furthermore,
virtually no annotation has been added (yet).
But by publishing this edition as a work-in-progress, we expect to
offer an invaluable source that can be searched, improved and elaborated
by everyone.
Researchers and students are invited to browse and search the online
edition and to join the project with new transcriptions, translations,
improvements of existing transcriptions, annotations etc. Those
interested are most welcome to join the Clusius Community
2.0 and to contribute to this edition! Contact us via clusius2.0@gmail.com.