Books

La sfera: Cosmology, Science, and Geography in the Fifteenth-Century Mediterranean, Caterina Agostini, Carrie Beneš, Winston Black, Elena Brizio, Laura Ingallinella, Monica Keene, and Laura Morreale, eds. and trans. New York: Italica Press, 2025.

Public-facing Events

Imagining the World in the Italian Renaissance, Mildred Sainer Pavilion, New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida, 5 December 5 2024

"The Sfera Project: Florentine Cosmology in the Computer Age." Medieval Academy of America Centennial Digital Humanities Showcase, 24 January 2025 (virtual); registration link)

(forthcoming) Teacher Training Workshop, "The World in the Renaissance: Digital Tools and Primary Sources," New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida. Sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, 8 March 2025.

Talks and Lectures

Carrie Beneš, "Dati’s Sfera: Between Merchants, Mapmakers, and Humanists," part of “Mappings at Leeds”, International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July 2025.

Carrie Beneš, “The 15th-Century Globe (La sfera) between Manuscript and Print”, Early Modern Rome 5, Rome, Italy, 14 November 2024.

Amanda Madden and Laura Morreale, "Digital La sfera: Florentine Cosmology in the Computer Age," Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy, 19 September 2024.

Carrie Beneš, “The Analysis & Presentation of Global Knowledge in the Manuscript Tradition of Dati’s Sfera,” Spatial Humanities 2024, Bamberg, Germany, 26 September 2024.

Laura Morreale, “When the Crowd Goes Home: Transcribed Texts Revived and Reused,” MANUSCRIPT (HE)ART, An RGME Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, virtual, 24 February 2024.

Carrie Beneš, “Imagining The Globe: Digital Approaches to Merchants, Mapping, & Manuscripts,” The Warburg Institute, London, 18 January 2024.

Carrie Beneš, “Immaginare La sfera: Mercanti, mappe e manoscritti nell’Italia del primo Quattrocento,” Circolo medievistico romano, Rome, Italy, 11 December 2023.

Carrie Beneš, “Florence in Tunis, Ancona on the Black Sea: An Italian Geography of the Mediterranean in Goro Dati’s La sfera”, International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, 4 July 2023.

Carrie Beneš, “Armchair Merchant and Vulgar Humanist: Goro Dati, 15th-Century Florence, and the Imagined East.” Invited presentation to the St Louis University Crusade Studies Forum, 24 March 2023.

Laura Morreale, “Transcription’s Children: The La Sfera Challenge and What Came After,” Between Technology and Theory: Digital Humanities Projects in Progress, The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Virutal, 9 June 2022.

Carrie Beneš, “Assessing Audience in the Manuscript Tradition of Dati’s La sfera,” New College Conference on Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Sarasota, Florida, 5 March 2022.

Carrie Beneš, “New Technologies IV: Digital Collaborative Editing Best Practices: The View from La sfera” (roundtable panelist). Renaissance Society of America (virtual), 15 April 2021.

Laura Morreale, “Of Manuscripts, Merchants, Monsters, and Maps, or: Creating Virtual Research Spaces for Medievalists,” The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 16th Annual Marco Manuscript Workshop, “Immaterial Culture.” Virtual, University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN, 6 February 2021.

Laura Morreale, “Distant Gatherings: A Text-Case for Digital Manuscript Collaborations,” 13th Annual (Virtual) Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, Virtual, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19 November 2020.

Articles and book chapters

Caterina Agostini and Carrie Beneš. “A Geospatial La Sfera: Navigating the Renaissance in the Mediterranean.” GeoHumanities ’21: Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Geospatial Humanities (November 2021), 22–27.

Laura Morreale, “Global Exchange, Then and Now: The Original and Digital Discoveries of Goro Dati’s La sfera,” in Cultures of Exchange. Mercantile Mentalities between Italy and the World (XII-XVI c.), ed. Germano Barduini, Susanna Barsella and William Caferro, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, forthcoming in 2025.

Blogposts, Newsletters, and Digital Publications

Carrie Beneš, “Socially-Distanced Manuscript Fun, or: A Summer with La sfera,” Manuscripts on My Mind 31 (September, 2020): 4-5.

Sara Carlstead Brumfield,. “La Sfera Challenge.” Tableau Public, 18 July 2020.

N. Kıvılcım Yavuz, “Manuscript of the Month: To Transcribe, or Not To Transcribe, That is Not the Question,” Inside Spencer: The KSRL Blog, 28 July 2020.

Monica Keane, “La Sfera Challenge II.” San Jose State University Special Collections and Archives Blog, 3 August 2020.

Morreale, Laura, et al. “La Sfera Challenge Project 1st Edition (September 2020) Archiving Dossier Narrative.” BodoArXiv doi: https://osf.io/preprints/bodoarxiv/4ghzu/ 10 Sept. 2020. ———. “La Sfera Challenge.” https://lasferachallenge.wordpress.com/ Accessed 15 November 2022.