Franz Fischer

Franz Fischer is an Associate Professor of Medieval and Humanistic Latin Literature and Director of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. He holds a Ph.D. in Medieval Latin from the University of Cologne and has extensive experience in coordinating Digital Humanities projects, including the EU-funded DiXiT network. His research focuses on textual criticism, manuscript studies, and the digitization of cultural heritage.

Education: Ph.D. in Medieval Latin (University of Cologne, 2007), studies in History, Latin, and Italian at Cologne and Rome. Professional roles include postdoctoral research at the Royal Irish Academy and coordination at the Cologne Center for eHumanities.

Research interests span Digital Humanities, medieval Latin literature, and public humanities. Recent work includes generative AI applications in scholarly editions, models for textual dynamics in Goethe studies, and the HTRogène corpus for handwritten text recognition.

Professional services include editorships of magazén and Digital Medievalist, leadership in the Digital Medievalist Community, and peer review for journals like Scholarly Editing. He has advised over 30 projects, including the Compendium Historiae edition and the Magica Levantina papyri project.

VeDPH and the Research Institute for Digital and Cultural Heritage host his lab activities, focusing on interdisciplinary digital humanities initiatives.