Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence: Methodological Developments in the Study of Astronomical Sources

26.02.2026 | 05.03.2026

Matthieu Husson, LTE, Observatoire de Paris-PSL

 

Since antiquity, the astral sciences have been cultivated across diverse historical contexts through complex processes of cross-cultural knowledge transmission. Studying this development requires a comprehensive corpus of sources and advanced analytical methodologies. Today, the rise of Digital Humanities (DH) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping how historians access, edit, and analyze these historical materials. This seminar presents recent advancements in the application of DH and AI to the history of astronomy. The presentation focuses on analyzing non-discursive elements in historical sources from the 8th to the 18th centuries across multiple linguistic traditions. We will specifically examine two relatively recent digital initiatives conducted in the Paris Observatory:

• DISHAS: A project dedicated to the digital study and critical edition of astronomical tables, aiming to reconstruct the computation scenarios employed by historical actors.
• EIDA: A project focused on the digital edition of diagrams used in the astral sciences.

It examines their material aspects, such as visual conventions, and their epistemic dimensions, including their roles in reasoning and argumentation.

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