Temporal Philology

Manuscript newsletters are by definition documents in motion. While they were written up, adapted and reassembled, they spread information all over the European continent. In the Florence State Archives, the documents are being preserved in separate folders reflecting their varied origins. It is known that these volumes have been rearranged during archival works in the centuries following their creation, the value of this distinction is therefore not wholly clear. By applying digital methodologies, however, we can calculate the dynamics of the travel times. This both tells something about the inner workings of this news system and also allows us to reapply this data to make an educated guess about the origin of these documents.