Abstract

The 18th century was a politically crucial period for the Ottomans and the Habsburg Empire. The Ottomans, who retreated from the lands they conquered in Europe in previous centuries due to the wars they lost against their arch-enemy Habsburg Empire, also had to cope with their internal problems.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the Habsburg envoy Anselm Franz von Fleischmann, who undertook a diplomatic mission in the Ottoman lands between 1711 and 1716, reported the Turkish social life and political developments to Vienna in nearly 70 documents. The reports, as mentioned above, include Fleischmann's correspondence with foreign politicians and his letters. These correspondences and reports can be a research topic for Digital History studies, a branch of Digital Humanities. It is possible to work on these documents with visualization tools in this context.

"Palladio" is a web-based platform that allows Humanities scholars to upload data and explore it through various visualization types easily. It is a digital research tool explicitly designed for humanistic inquiry. This study includes adapting Anselm Franz von Fleischmann's reports to Palladio, which is a multi-layered visualization tool. In this way, it is aimed to process a subject in the field of Diplomatic History with Digital History tools.

Keywords

Digital Humanities, Palladio, Anselm Franz von Fleischmann, Habsburg, Ottoman, Visualization

Emerging of the Digital Technologies in Humanities Research

The rise of digital technology continues to affect every aspect of our lives. Specifically, the development of computer technology makes our daily life easier and offers possibilities too that we could not imagine in science before. Indeed, the rate of change varies by subject and research focus, with some disciplines relying more heavily on computer technology than others.2

The fact that computer (or computational) technology products are taking place more and more in our daily lives - even though they are now indispensable for many of us - may not be correct to suggest the same effect and acceptance in terms of scientific research. Although computer technologies were born based on natural and arithmetic sciences such as mathematics, statistics, physics, and engineering, it is now an area that humanistic researchers also benefit from and closely follow. Of course, it would be disappointing to compare the rate of use of computer technologies by researchers specializing in the disciplines mentioned above and humanistic researchers. However, it is also encouraging to see that the adaptation of technology to social and human sciences is increasing day by day. It is rare today to find an academic who has not used this technology as part of their research. So, when did the usage of computer techniques in social research start?

The use of computer techniques in social and human science research dates back to the 1950s. Pioneered by an Italian Jesuit priest Robert Busa, and British Professor Josephine Miles, in collaboration with IBM, they began to use mainframe computers that were much faster than traditional methods for tasks such as word searching, counting, and sorting in Saint Thomas Aquinas's writings known as the Index Thomisticus.3 Realizing the advantage of computer technologies, many archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, and other social scientists adapted the new methods offered by this technology to their works.4 Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the adaptation of studies in the humanities to the digital screen continued. In 1966, "Computers and the Humanities," the first academic journal specializing in digital humanities, was published. In 1978, ACH – The Association for Computers and the Humanities was founded. TEI - Text Encoding Initiative started to spread mainly for linguistic analysis in the 1990s. A text editor, tagging, and marking protocol was needed for these analyses, and for this aim, XML- Extensible Markup Language was developed.5 Today, we can talk about the production and dissemination of information in the digital environment rather than digitizing information. This new field, which trains its own researchers and receives support and investment from many government institutions, private agencies, and organizations, welcomes us with the name "Digital Humanities."

Digital Humanities – Digital Methods - Digital History

In a single sentence, it is no longer possible to describe Digital Humanities, which has emerged as a research field and a technique in its own right. Because of the development of computer technology, the definition of Digital Humanities is also changing. While it was possible to give some simple definitions of "adaptation of computer technologies and digital techniques to social science research" or "the inclusion and use of digital technology and methodology in humanities research" until today, it seems more correct to define it as "the branch of research that deals with the information created in the digital environment.". According to Jeffrey Schnapp from Harvard University, Digital Humanities is an experimental field previously referred to as humanistic computing or humanities informatics.6 If an inclusive definition is desired, it can be said that Digital Humanities is a practice-based field that gathers researchers from different social and human sciences under one roof for a specific purpose.

It was mentioned that it is difficult to make a general definition of Digital Humanities and that the definition depends on the changing technology. Well, what can be said about what values are prioritized by Digital Humanities research? Moreover, what are the main methods used in Digital Humanities research?

Although it is a complex field to define, it can be observed that Digital Humanities research or projects are built on similar values. The values that a DH project should contain can be summarized as “Critical & Theoretical (Researches are often based on a humanistic self-criticism), Iterative & Experimental (Repetitive versions of digital projects encourage experimentation, risk-taking, redefinition, and sometimes failure), Collaborative & Distributed (Studies usually have more than one author), Multimodal & Performative (Researches in digital humanities adopt many modes such as video, text, audio, etc.), and Open & Accessible (Many DH scholarships are open to digital archives and interactive digital platforms.).”.7

As in traditional social science and humanities studies, it is possible to talk about certain methods and methods in DH research. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that the methods used are more prominent compared to traditional studies. The methods and approaches used in studies in the field of DH can be generally stated as follows: “Enhanced Critical Curation (Object-based arguments through the curation of digital media), Augmented Editions and Fluid Textuality (Digital editions marked up and encoded texts, often created through crowdsourced methods and open to revision, annotation, and remix), Scale: The Law of Large Numbers (Creating new findings with computational and algorithmically-enabled interpretations of digitized and innate digital culture materials), Distant-Close / Macro-Micro

/ Surface/Depth (Unlike close reading, distance reading seeks to understand and analyze large corpus over time through “trends, patterns and relationships), Cultural Analytics / Aggregation and Data-Mining (Cultural analytics mines, studies, and displays cultural materials, often including interactive and narrativize visualizations), Locative Investigation and Mapping (the creation of emerging “data landscapes” as geographic information systems (GIS) or digital cultural mapping , The Animated Archive (making static archives live and almost experiential), Distributed Knowledge Production and Performative Access (the idea of “the author” through team contributions, crowdsourcing, and the user-based performance of the “text”), Humanities Game (Humanities games use virtual learning environments to create interactive narratives that engage users and explore humanistic themes), Code, Software, and Platform Studies (the platforms that re-build our socio-cultural interactions), Database Documentaries (Multimodal narratives formed from a databases), Repurposable Content and Remix Culture (All digital contents are subject to migration, sample, remix, translation, and other forms of reuse), Pervasive Infrastructure (our digital works are stored in digital memories and the cloud, and they are distributed over servers in multiple locations), Ubiquitous Scholarship (Publishing is becoming more and more common and available to everyone), and Visualization and Data Design (arguments made from data visualization; designs constructed from and informed by data)”.8

DH researchers use software to carry out their work or transfer it to the digital environment. These software may be computer programs or even mobile phone applications, which are called digital tools. Digital tools that can be used for scholarship uploaded to or produced in the digital environment can be actively used in every process from its creation to its publication.9

When we look at the research on humanities and social sciences disciplines with digital tools, we usually see that sociological, archaeological, linguistic, or literary research is the majority. Indeed, this does not mean that historians do not use digital tools or rarely use them. It would not be wrong to deduce that the Digital Humanities tools most benefited by historians are digital archives and imaging software.

If we must specify, the most frequently used Digital tools of Digital History, which is a sub-branch of Digital Humanities and means utilizing digital technology in historical research, are online presentation software, digital archives, 3D modelling, and data visualizations.10 Digital History researchers present their work to relevant audiences by using a wide range of technology tools, from basic web applications to virtual reality and even augmented reality tools. Certainly, a historian needs to interpret the period he/she is studying and make an inference, and as we all know, it is also a requirement to share the results with those interested in the subject or other researchers in the same field.

Visualization of data is very important for both Digital Humanities researchers and Digital Historians. The Palladio tool offers unique visualization possibilities for DH researchers. It would be helpful for us,historians, to get to know Palladio, which is one of the most successful digital tools among visualization software.

What is "Palladio"?

As mentioned before, visualization is one of the most used main methods for DH research. Therefore, using the digital tool, which offers this method to researchers with the most usage possibilities, in our studies will undoubtedly save us time and enrich our work. Knowing Palladio, which is a multi-layered digital tool, will undoubtedly provide many advantages for digital historians.

According to the designers who created it, Palladio is a project in which designers, developers, and academics collaborate extensively. The entire tool has been designed to fit the ways in which the humanities could engage or interact with data and technology. It is a web-based platform that enables Humanities academics to quickly upload data and visualize it in several ways. Palladio is a digital research tool created by developers at Stanford University's Humanities & Design Lab. Researchers can use this tool to generate graphs and diagrams without employing a designer. Moreover, it is a set of software that allows scholars to examine historical data throughout time and space. It is a project that requires much collaboration between designers, developers, and academics.11

What can we do with Palladio? First of all, creating a new project with Palladio is very practical. There are five different categories in this digital tool. These categories are Data, Map, Graph, Table, and Gallery.12 Perhaps the advantage that makes Palladio one step ahead of other visualization tools is that this tool contains different categories that allow us to process scholarships in different ways compared to other tools.

A researcher can start working by easily loading the tabular data to be used in the project into Palladio with an edited Excel file. The “Map” category shows the existing coordinate

points in the data and the relations connecting these points. Horizontal lines express the relationship's intensity and the relationship's flow direction. In addition, the appearance of the map can be changed according to demand. It is possible to work on a map on a physical, political, or satellite view.

The “Graph” tab can be used to show any link between recorded data. The dimensions between the data can be represented by lines connecting these data. The connection display can be disabled if desired. In the “Table” view, the data can be viewed in the form of a list. It is possible to add columns to this list that allow different data dimensions to be displayed. In addition, this data in the list view can be exported as a .csv file.

In the last section, "Gallery," the recorded data can be viewed as a grid. If more information is needed regarding the contents of the data with this part, Palladio allows adding web-based external information to this data. Also, in this category, we can make any linked data visible in the Grid view.

Presumably, it cannot be obvious to give a theoretical explanation of the functions of a digital tool. For a Digital Historian, it is undoubtedly an exciting experience to turn theoretical knowledge into practice. For this purpose, this study provides information on the use of Palladio to visualize the writings of Austrian diplomat Anselm Franz von Fleischmann, who was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Ottoman Empire in the early 18th century and reported to his country about the political developments there. Before going into practice, it is necessary to give brief information about the diplomat, which is the subject of the study.

Anselm Franz von Fleischmann

Anselm Franz von Fleischmann was a Habsburg diplomat. He travelled to Constantinople in 1706 with the diplomatic representative Quarient und Raall. He could not return to Vienna because he had a severe illness there. In Constantinople, he gained the trust of Michael von Talmann, the resident ambassador of the Habsburgs, and began working as a secretary for him.13 He went to Isakça (Isaccea) on the order of Talman to observe the Russo- Ottoman War that broke out in 1711 and reported the events that took place there to Hofkriegsrat in Vienna.

The date Fleischmann arrived in the Ottoman Empire was important. This date coincides with the end of a series of bloody wars waged by both Empires against each other. Like many other examples in history, the Treaty of Karlowitz signed in 1699 was not enough to establish peace.

From the beginning of the 18th century, the Habsburgs were busy with the War of the Spanish Succession, which would last for about 15 years and the Ottomans were faced with a change of throne, internal revolts, and the emerging Russian danger. The struggle of the Ottomans to reclaim the lands they lost and the conflict with the parties to the Treaty of Karlowitz one by one constitute the content of the documents recorded by Fleischmann.

The most prominent political events in these documents are the situation of the Swedish King Charles-XII, who took refuge in the Ottomans after the Great Northern War, the 1711 Ottoman-Russian War and the Treaty of Prut, and the Morea Campaign of the Ottomans against the Venetians.

Fleischmann was recalled by Prince Eugene of Savoy, head of the Austrian War Council (Hofkriegsrat) before the Habsburgs declared war on the Ottomans in 1716. Among the nearly 70 documents recorded between 1711 and 1716 - in three folders in the Austrian state archives - the Swedish Chancellor H.G. von Müllern and a Transylvanian aristocrat J. T. von Fogarach are also included.

Implementation

To work with Palladio, the data we will use must be organized and consistent with each other. For this purpose, we need to create an Excel file.

As we can see in Figure-1, it has been made a classification of Fleishmann's reports by the date they were written, the language, by whom, and from where to where. In addition, other classifications, such as the subject of the reports and the mentioned persons, are also in this file. The "places, people, and years" tabs you see in the bottom row also contain related data with this tab. (Figure-1)

Figure 1: The following image shows an organized table of data on the date, language, author, recipient, and from where the reports were sent.

To work on Palladio's virtual map, the places where Fleischmann's reports were written and sent have been recorded together with their geographical coordinates. (Figure-2)

Figure 2: The locations where the reports are sent should be recorded with their names and coordinates. This registration is required for display on the map.

In addition, information such as the person's name, title, and photographs can be saved in the same way so that detailed information about them can be accessed by clicking on the names of the people mentioned in the document on Palladio. (Figure-3)

Figure 3: To display the data we want in a list or grid view, a categorization can be made as follows.

As mentioned earlier, Palladio is a web-based application. When we enter Palladio's website, we see a blank page where we can copy and paste the data into the Excel file we created. (Figure-4)

Figure 4: When we enter Palladio's website, a page like the one below welcomes us. This page is the platform on which we will upload the data we will work.

The data we upload to the main page should be the tab on which our primary data is. Then, we should associate the data on the other tabs with the data we loaded first. (Figure-5)

Figure 5: When the data is uploaded to Palladio it looks like the following.

After uploading the tab with our primary data to Palladio, we can associate it with other added data. (Figure-6)

Figure 6: After the data table is loaded, the data we want should be matched. In the example below, reports are associated with people and places

After uploading our data to Palladio, we should correlate the geographic locations where Fleischmann's reports were sent, as mentioned earlier. The lines we see on the map represent where the reports (or letters) were sent. The size of the red dots is related to the redundancy of the reports. We understand that most documents were sent from Constantinople to Vienna. After Constantinople, most records went to Vienna from Adrianople. In addition, we see on the map that Vienna reports were sent from Belgrade, Timisoara, Szeged, Isaccea, Dimatoka, and Petersburg. In addition, a letter was sent from Vienna to the Kaiser in Spain. (Figure-7)

Figure 7: The coordinates entered while loading the data can be seen as points on the map. Lines represent relationships between coordinates

In the "Graph" tab, it is possible to show the relationship between the two separate data we have determined. From the application, we can see the relationship between the subject of Fleischmann's reports and the years in which they were written.

According to the graph (Figure-8), it is striking that the Ottoman-Russian conflict was the main subject of the reports sent in 1711. The Ottoman-Tatar alliance, the peace offer of the Russians, and the betrayal of the Moldavian prince Dimitri Cantemir from the Ottomans are the other outstanding issues.

Figure 8: We can show the connection between dimensions in the Graph view.

When we look at the year 1714, it draws attention to the documents that the return of the refugee Swedish King Charles-XII and the Venetian-Ottoman conflict were the main subjects of the documents sent to Vienna. However, Rakoczy's rebellion and the intrigues of the French ambassador Des Alleurs were also the subjects of documents sent this year.

When we look at the reports sent in 1715 and 1716 (Figure-9), the tension between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs after the Venetian conflict draws attention. The Ottomans fortified the Belgrade fortress took 50,000 auxiliary soldiers from the Tatars and marched to Bosnia.

Figure 9: The image below shows which political events took place in which years.

In the "Table" section of the tool (Figure-10), the people mentioned in the reports are classified by years. If we pay attention to the Chart, the Swedish Princess Ulrika Eleonora (Queen of Sweden after Charles-XII) was mentioned only in 1714; Ottoman Grand Vizier Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha and Crimean Khan Qaplan I Giray were the main subjects of documents in 1711-1714 and 1715.

Figure 10: In the List category, a list view of the data associated with each other is obtained. It is also possible to add different columns to show additional data related to the main table.

In the last section, "Gallery" (Figure-11), we can see some rulers mentioned in Fleischmann's records. According to our main data table, brief information about them is included in this section.

Figure 11: In the last category, data can be visualized in Grid view as in the figure. Here, we can add or remove any of the data we want to connect in the view.

In conclusion, Palladio is a web-based digital tool that allows us to use many visualization applications with many layers simultaneously. It offers possibilities for correlating data, graphing, and virtual mapping for social scientists and historians.

This study aims to encourage the digitalization and visualization of the studies that are the subject of diplomatic history research by using this digital tool. As mentioned several times, it is possible to visualize the reports and letters of travellers, ambassadors, or envoys such as

A. Franz von Fleischmann by Palladio.

When using Palladio, it should be noted that data should be saved in a specific order. Although Palladio provides a practical use, we (historians) cannot always have the same amount of information about every source we work with, so it is possible to encounter difficulties in use sometimes.