The ARTFL Encyclopédie
The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres was published under the direction of Diderot and d'Alembert, with 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of plates between 1751 and 1772. Containing 74,000 articles written by more than 130 contributors, the Encyclopédie was a massive reference work for the arts and sciences, as well as a machine de guerre which served to propagate the ideas of the French Enlightenment. The impact of the Encyclopédie was enormous. Through its attempt to classify learning and to open all domains of human activity to its readers, the Encyclopédie gave expression to many of the most important intellectual and social developments of its time.
The ARTFL Encyclopédie database contains 21.7 million words, 254,000 unique forms, 18,000 pages of text, 17 volumes of articles, and 11 volumes of plate legends. For a full description of the latest version of the ARTFL Encyclopédie, see the Editor's Introduction.
SEARCH the ARTFL Encyclopédie
News
The ARTFL Encyclopédie is now available under our next generation corpus analysis system PhiloLogic4. This new release offers many new features, functionalities and improvements. The powerful new faceted search and browse capabilities offered by PhiloLogic4 allow users better to leverage the organizational structure of the Encyclopédie -- classes of knowledge, authors, headwords, volumes, and the like. Further it gives them the possibility of exploring the interesting alternatives offered by algorithmically or machine generated classes. The collocation searches generate word-clouds or word lists that are clickable to obtain immediately concordances for any of the words.
This release also contains:
- A beautiful new set of high-resolution plate images that can be viewed in clickable thumbnail versions leading to larger images that can be viewed in much greater detail than was previously possible. We would like to thank the University of Chicago Library for providing these images.
- Biographies of the encyclopédistes directly accessible by simply clicking the name of the author of any given article. This information is drawn directly from Frank and Serena Kafker’s The Encyclopédists as Individuals: A Biographical Dictionary of Authors of the Encyclopédie made available to us as part of our collaborative relationship with the Voltaire Foundation of the University of Oxford.
- Improvements such as some new author attributions, various corrections and better cross-referencing functionality.
New resource (fall 2023): Encyclopédie Plate Search interface and IIIF viewing platform
ARTFL is happy to announce a new search and display interface for the high-resolution Encyclopédie plate images contained in volumes 18 through 28. Users can search for plates using keywords or plate group names, or simply browse plates by volume. Search results present links to examine in close detail, compare, and interact with individual images or entire plate groups in a IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) viewer called Mirador. Please see the search page for more information about this resource and about IIIF.
Mobile Versions
- Android and iOS reader apps: The ARTFL Encyclopédie is still available as a reader application on both Android and Apple iOS devices. These applications include a text search and retrieval interface that interacts with the current database of the Encyclopédie of running remotely on our servers. Users can do simple word or bibliographic searches and, from search results, link to larger text sections.
Related links
- Call for contributions: Contribute English translations of Encyclopédie articles (collaboration with the University of Michigan).
- Denis Diderot's 'Rameau's Nephew': A Multi-Media Edition Editor M. Hobson. Translators K.E. Tunstall and C. Warman. Music Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris, director P. Duc. Open Book Publishers.
