Redigatio

Redigatio is a Latin term used in textual criticism and classical philology to describe the act and result of editing a text through revision, compilation, and harmonization by a redactor. From the verb redigere, meaning to bring into order, redigatio denotes the process of creating a cohesive edition from one or more source texts and manuscripts.

In practice, redigatio involves comparing manuscripts, selecting readings, rearranging passages, condensing or expanding material, and smoothing linguistic or stylistic inconsistencies. Editors may also add glosses, marginalia, or clarifications to guide future readers. The term often encompasses both abridgment and expansion, depending on the editorial aims and the traditions being edited.

Historical usage of redigatio is common in antiquity and the medieval period, when editors produced standardized editions of authors or legal and religious texts. In modern scholarship, the concept helps distinguish the editor’s shaping work from the original authorial text or from purely critical recension (the act of evaluating variants to establish a text). Redigatio focuses on the editor's constructive rewriting and reorganization rather than merely cataloging textual variants.

Significance lies in its impact on the transmission and reception of a work. Editorial redaction can introduce changes that become fixed in later copies, sometimes making it difficult to recover the author’s original wording. Textual critics study redigatio to understand manuscript traditions and to present informed, transparent modern editions of historical texts.