In Spring 2011 three researchers of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (see Burgio / Buzzoni / Ghersetti 2013) launched a project whose main objective was the production of a scholarly digital edition of Dei Viaggi di Messer Marco Polo, the Italian version of Il Milione written by Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557) and published in the second volume of his odeporic collection Navigationi et viaggi (1559).
The digital object which is now available at this website displays the characteristics of a hypertext edition, since it focuses on Ramusio’s text and the sources he had at his disposal, without aiming at going back to the manuscripts.
The main goal of this edition is to represent Ramusio’s alleged ‘desk’ in a virtual hypertext environment. In the Electronic Ramusio, the modal windows allow the user to visualize a chapter of Ramusio's text (R) in parallel with its major sources (Z, V, VB, L, P and VA, F), three of which are given in new born-digital editions. Furthermore, each section of the text is accompanied by a philological commentary made accessible through pop-up windows which present the relevant interface to the user. Finally, it is possible to display (and superimpose) the entire text of the other Milione redactions, and access the records containing the information on the Eastern realia both through the “Lemmario” button in the main Menu and through the internal page links.
The simultaneous opening of different windows in an online environment permits to visualize: (1) the main text (Ramusio’s Dei Viaggi); (2) the comment apparatus (containing the identified sources; an analysis of their manipulation; some informative notes); (3) the complete version of the text from which the source extracts are taken, also in parallel with the Ramusian text.
An edition as such allows the readers to create their own path within the text(s) provided.