The proposed dataset comprises transcriptions, translations (into Polish and English), and photographs of two handwritten letters by Gottlieb Wernsdorf (1717-1774), a prominent scholar and Professor of the Academic Gymnasium in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). The correspondence is addressed to Gottlieb's younger brother, Ernst Friedrich Wernsdorf (1718-1778), who at that time held the chair of theology at the University of Wittenberg.
The letters
Both letters are a part of the collection of manuscripts held in the Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS). They are two of three original letters of Wernsdorf family extant in Gdańsk in a fascicle containing the family correspondence (local shelf-mark: Ms. 2452). The letters have been written five years apart: the earlier one is dated 1745, whereas the later one was written in 1750. However, the date is not the only factor differentiating these two documents as the letter from 1745 is a draft, unlike the later one which has an air of a fair copy.
The content of the Wernsdorf letters seems to be a one typical of the scholarly correspondence within the early modern Republic of Letters: the author mentions both the scholarly pieces of writing and other individuals (scholars, mostly). The latter are as important as the contents themselves due to their potential role as delivery, courier or further addressee of the attached content. Thus, the correspondence of Gottlieb Wernsdorf fills the gap in the mapping of the transmission of knowledge in the eastern regions of German-speaking 18th-century Europe and even beyond said area, because in the 1750 letter we can read about cardinal Angelo Maria Quirini (1680-1755) who was personally involved in the long-lasting Wernsdorf's work on the edition of Himerius of Prusias (which started in the fourth decade of the 18th century).
Editing procedures
The editorial treatment of the two letters was adjusted to the form and content of the dataset so we do not consider the presented set of files as a lege artis philological edition. However, we have made some significant modifications, hoping that such treatment of the original material would make the latter more user-friendly to a modern reader. We transcribed the text of both letters from the manuscripts by following the rules of spelling present in the modern Latin language dictionaries (see Related publications). Furthermore, we have changed the punctuation to show the syntactical limits of singular sentences in the compounded utterances rather than to expose – as it was typical for the 18th century – the rhetorical structure of the utterances (they were built upon the so called 'commata' and 'cola' as the primary elements of a rhetorically defined sentence). One may easily confront the results with the original when comparing the photographed manuscripts with the transcription.
Final remarks
The editorial activities regarding the presented letters involved a group of undergraduate students. For that reason, I owe thanks to Cyryl, Julia, Julita, Kalina, Oskar and Vanessa. However, all possible mistakes should be considered solely my fault. I would also like to express special thanks to Piotr Kociumbas who kindly vetted the German fragment and thus considerably helped to improve the final version of the transcription.
We publish the dataset using an open licence. This means that anyone can change and adapt the text in accordance with their own ideas and objectives. When doing so, please, remember to cite the names of the authors of the dataset you have made use of.
Also, if you intend to use the photographs contained in this dataset, please, remember to provide the information that the photographed manuscripts are held in the collection of the Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Science.
(2024-06)
