Roberto Busa

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Roberto Busa (2006)

Roberto Busa SJ (born November 28, 1913 in Asiago , Vicenza province , † August 9, 2011 in Gallarate , Varese province ) was an Italian religious , theologian and linguist . Roberto Busa is considered to be the founder of the scientific application of EDP in the humanities ( digital humanities ) and inventor of the Index Thomisticus .

Life

Roberto Busa, the second of five children of a railway official, attended the primary school in Bolzano , the Scipione Maffei in Verona and the Tiziano Vecellio in Belluno . In 1928 he entered the seminary of Belluno and studied Catholic theology , among others with Albino Luciani ( John Paul I ). He joined the Jesuit order in 1933 and graduated in philosophy in 1937 and in Catholic theology in 1940. He was ordained a priest on May 30, 1941 . During the Second World War he was a chaplain in the Italian army from 1940 to 1943 and later with the partisans .

At the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome , he was in 1946 with the work La Terminologia Tomistica dell'interiorità for Doctor of theology doctorate. The result of his doctoral thesis was the lemmatization of the works of Thomas Aquinas . Because of the size of Thomas Aquinas' work and the complexity of lemmatization, Busa worked with Thomas J. Watson , the founder of IBM. Instead of a calculated 40 years, the task could be completed in seven years using IBM technology. The so-called Index Thomisticus was created , a 56-volume work with 70,000 pages. Busa thus became one of the pioneers in the use of computers in lexicography , text hermeneutics and computational linguistics and later information technologies for text analysis , lexicography and literature as a forerunner of hypertext , Internet and Wikipedia .

In 1949 he was appointed full professor of ontology , theodicy and scientific work at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He also worked at the Jesuit Aloisianum Faculty in Gallarate , Varese Province . As a result of his activities, the Centro Automazione Analisi Linguistica (CAAL) , the Comitato Promotore and the Collegio d'Iniziativa were created . In 1983 the Associazione per la Computerizzazione delle Analisi Ermeneutiche e Lessicologiche (CAEL) followed the CAAL. In 1992 he founded the School of Lexicography and Hermeneutics (Scuola di Lessicografia ed Ermeneutica) within the Faculty of Philosophy at the Gregoriana. At the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan , he founded the Gruppo Interdisciplinare per le Ricerche della Computerizzazione dei Segni dell'Espressione (GIRCSE) and taught artificial intelligence and robotics from 1995 to 2000 . Most recently, he taught computer-aided text analysis and Thomistic hermeneutics at the Gregoriana.

He is the namesake of the Busa Prize . In 2005 he was awarded the Grand Cross (Cavaliere di Gran Croce) of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi .

literature

Web links

Commons : Roberto Busa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernesto Priego: "Father Roberto Busa: one academic's impact on HE and my career" , The Guardian , accessed 15 August 2011
  2. ^ "Father Busa, pioneer of computing in humanities with Index Thomisticus, dies at 98" , Forbes , August 11, 2011
  3. ^ "Biographical Keyword" , accessed on August 15, 2011
  4. ↑ "Religion: Sacred Electronics" , Time , December 31, 1956 accessed 15 August 2011
  5. ^ "Morto padre Busa, è stato il pioniere" , Corriere del Veneto , accessed on August 15, 2011
  6. ^ "Father Roberto Busa" , Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations , accessed August 15, 2011
  7. ^ "The Busa Prize" , Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations , accessed August 15, 2011
  8. ^ "The Busa Prize" , Presidenza della Repubblica, June 2, 2005, accessed August 15, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Busa, Roberto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian religious, theologian and linguist
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Asiago , Vicenza Province
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 2011
Place of death Gallarate , Varese Province