Reka’s research focuses on the social, political and religious contexts in which literary and intellectual activity took place, with particular emphasis on Greek–Latin translation in the Middle Ages. As a co-PI of the Velux Core Group project "Method" Reka will investigate the political background, the strategical choices and textual networks behind the first translation into Latin of the Hermogenian corpus, by looking both at the possible influences of Byzantine exegeses on those translations and at the way the circulation of the Latin versions affected the reception of Hermogenes in Western Europe. Check out more on Reka's research here.
Andrea is a Digital Humanist whose work brings computational methods into the study of early modern literature and culture. With a background in modern literature, Latin and philology, he combines traditional textual scholarship with Natural Language Processing, stylometry and machine learning. His research has explored Neo-Latin drama, tracing patterns of style, intertextuality, authorship and literary influence across large textual corpora. In "Method", his expertise in Latin and computational text analysis provides a bridge between the project’s historical questions and its digital exploration of textual networks. In the framework of "Method" he will work with a large corpus of Byzantine Greek and Renaissance Latin texts, prepare and structure the material, develop and train language models, and use Natural Language Processing to trace how the concept of “method” changes across time, languages and intellectual traditions. Andrea will transform these complex textual patterns into semantic networks and interactive visualizations, making it possible to see connections that are difficult to detect through close reading alone. You can read Andrea's work here.
Elisabetta has worked as a post-doc in the project "A Rhetoric for the Empire' – Carlsberg Semper Ardens Accelerate from September 2023 until August 2024. She worked toward the first critical edition with English translation of John Tzetzes' commentary on On types of styles and On the method of eloquence. The former, submitted to the Brill series Early Sources in Literary criticism will be the first volume of the collective edition of Tzetzes' commentary on the corpus to be published. Her work on the project is a development of her PhD project, which established the layout for the whole edition. Read about Elisabetta's work here.
Byron has worked as a post-doc for the project "A Rhetoric for the Empire" – Carlsberg Semper Ardens Accelerate from September 2023 until December 2025. He engaged with John Doxapatres, and in particular, his commentary on On issues, whose text he transcribed from Vat. gr. 130. The goal is to provide the first critical edition of this text. Byron is now working toward a digital edition, to capture the complexity of a very fluid textual tradition, in cooperation with the OCHRE Data Service at the University of Chicago. This part of the work is connected to "E-Rhetoric". Byron contributed to developing the HTR model, which has allowed to produce the first OA transcription of Doxapatres' commentary on On Invention preserved in the manuscript Vat. gr. 2228 and available here. He has also co-organized with Aglae the panel, presented at the 50th Byzantine Studies Conference “Desperatly Seeking Doxapatres”, designed to become the core of the first edited volume devoted to this elusive author. Check out Byron's research here.
Dasha has worked as a post-doc in the project "Rhetoric for the Empire" – Carlsberg Semper Ardens Accelerate from September 2023 until August 2025. She has investigated the exegetical production of John of Sardis, reading it against the background of contemporary (9th century) evolutions of Christian rhetoric. She has singled out John of Sardis’ distinctive exegetical voice, a voice that meets the needs of a preacher seeking in Hermogenes tools and discursive strategies suitable to address a community of believers and to foster unity. You can read Dasha's research here.
Ugo Valori has carried out his doctoral studies in the framework of a joint degree between the University of Milan and the University of Southern Denmark, where he was funded by the – Carlsberg Semper Ardens Accelerate project "A Rhetoric for the Empire". While working on his dissertation, titled, he has investigated the intersection between Aristotelian and Hermogenian rhetoric in 12th-century school practices, developing a keen eye for and interest in the overlaps between fields of knowledge, such as rhetoric and law. After completing his PhD he has been working as a research assistant contributing substantially to the transcription of Doxapatres' commentary on On Invention preserved in the manuscript Vat. gr. 2228 and available here as well as to the finetuning of the HTR model developed within the Carlsberg Infrastructure Project "E-Rhetoric" (available here).
Manfred , Professor Emeritus at the University of Tuebingen, is a en external collaborator to the Carlsberg Semper Ardens Accelerate project "A Rhetoric for the Empire". An expert on Progymnasmata and their receptio, Manfred is working on John Tzetzes' commentary on Aphthonius, moving toward an edition complete with English translation. He will also cooperate with the Velux Core Group Project "Method", by looking into the first Latin translations of Hermogenes, with a specific focus on Antonio Bonfini and his translating enterprise sponsored by the Hungarian king Hunyadi Mátyás (Mathias Corvinus). You can read about Manfred's research here.
Baukje, associate professor in Byzantine literature at the Central European University in Vienna, is a en external collaborator to the Carlsberg Semper Ardens Accelerate project "A Rhetoric for the Empire". She is preparing the edition and translation of John Tzetzes' commentary on On Invention. From September 2026 and through 2030 she will be PI in the project "Rhetorical Thought in Byzantium (11th–14th c.): John Doxapatres, John Tzetzes, Maximos Planoudes", funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, see here), with which ByzHerm will collaborate closely. You can read more about her research here.
Before becoming Assistant Professor in Data Science at the University of Southern Denmark (see here) Nicklas Sindlev Andersen has contributed as a research assistant to the project Carlsberg Infrastructure project "E-Rhetoric" from February 2025 through Janury 2026. His research sits at the intersection of data science, visual analytics and digital humanities, with a particular interest in developing computational approaches to complex cultural and historical data. His work was fundamental in developing, training and implementing two HTR models, one for the ms. Vienna Phil. gr. 130 and one for the Vat. gr. 2228, which is now published here.
Tariq, an Associate Professor in Data Science at the University of Southern Denmark (see here), works on computational methods applied to language and textual data, including natural language processing and the analysis of historical and cultural materials. He has contributed to the Carlsberg Infrastructure Project "E-Rhetoric" and in particular to the HTR pipleline, through the integration of language models in the post-processing phase.
As postdoctoral fellow for the Gerda Henkel Stiftung project "Necessity by design" from September 2022 to August 2024, Chiara was responsible for investigating the visual dimension of Byzantine rhetoric. Her research focused on diagrams and other visualization tools found in manuscripts of the Corpus Hermogenianum and its commentaries. She examined how these visual forms helped readers understand, organize, and communicate complex rhetorical ideas. A central part of her work involved identifying, documenting, and classifying the different types of diagrams preserved in the manuscript tradition. She developed an integrated approach, studying diagrams not as isolated illustrations but as a broader visual response to the rhetorical texts. Her findings contributed to a new understanding of the role of visual practices in debates about the epistemic status of rhetoric.
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