ReNom: Navigating the Works of Rabelais and Ronsard in Search of People and Places

ReNom is an initiative developed by the BVH team (Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes) of the CESR (Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance) in collaboration with the LI (Laboratoire d'Informatique) of Tours University. Its aim is to provide navigational tools, usable by a wide public, for exploring places and characters in the works of Rabelais and Ronsard.

The resource associates key texts by the two Renaissance authors with a system of georeferencing and a series of fact sheets corresponding to the places and characters mentioned in the texts. Multi-criteria search options and an interactive map enable users to acquire information on the places and characters mentioned in Rabelais’ and Ronsard’s work in geographical context. Designed for tourists and literature lovers as well as scholars, the georeferenced texts may be downloaded as EPUB files, thus making them practical and easy to use when out and about.

ReNom seeks to encourage a form of literary tourism at once fun and instructive, capable of valorising the region’s rich blend of cultural, historical and natural heritage, developing its touristic potential and opening up new perspectives for actors in the field.