Культуры в диалоге: портал Максима Грека

This article introduces the portal on Maximus the Greek, a project aimed at enhancing his literary and cultural heritage and documenting his relationship with Humanism. As a project, the portal is the first digital space entirely dedicated to Maximus the Greek and constitutes the first complete database of his published works and translations into modern European languages. It will be a freely accessible and explorable space that can be consulted without restriction and that, thanks to the use of English and Russian, as well as Italian, will also be usable on a European and international scale. In particular, the theme of Maximus’ relationship with humanist culture and its exponents and his role as a mediator in Muscovy of the values of Humanism will a privileged space for dialogue between Italian and Russian Slavists. The portal will encourage and support investigations into the Italian phase of Maximus’ life, the western sources of his Slavic production, the method of humanistic philology he applied in the revision of sacred texts in the Slavic language, and the western influences his language. The results that will be achieved in each area will create a new awareness of the scope of Maximus’ work and activity, opening up a new historiographic vision and understanding of the 16th-century evolution of Russian culture. The digitisation and digital mapping of Maximus the Greek’s production will the almost total absence in this field of coherent and structured digital realities and solutions. The phases of the project are: the census, cataloguing and digitisation of his works, their digital mapping, the research phase, and the computer processing of data and results. It will be a versatile and innovative tool, able to be consulted and queried in three different languages – Italian, Russian and English – with a complex structure capable of supporting multiple functions. In our expectations, will constitute not only a tool to support research, but rather a space for the development of research, promoting encounters between different epochs, traditions and countries, in order to foster an ever understanding of the significance of Maximus the Greek’s work and activity in the name of mutual understanding and dialogue between cultures.