Ereticopedia in the Age of AI: Figures, Growth, and New Perspectives

Thirteen years after its launch, Ereticopedia continues to grow and expand its content. Launched in February 2013 as a collaborative project devoted to the history of religious heterodoxy, dissent, and inquisitorial institutions, the website has progressively developed into an extensive digital resource, characterized by non-linear but substantially continuous growth.

The most immediate indicator concerns the main entries of the Dictionary of Heretics, Dissidents and Inquisitors in the Mediterranean World. A reconstruction based on the creation dates of the pages makes it possible to trace the evolution of the project with considerable precision, showing both the new entries produced each year and their progressive cumulative growth:

Year	New main entries	Cumulative total
2013	625	625
2014	419	1,044
2015	105	1,149
2016	79	1,228
2017	290	1,518
2018	56	1,574
2019	45	1,619
2020	440	2,059
2021	231	2,290
2022	126	2,416
2023	44	2,460
2024	64	2,524
2025	99	2,623
2026 (as of 22 August)	89	2,712

The total has thus reached 2,712 main entries. The figures clearly illustrate the different phases in Ereticopedia's history. The very strong initial momentum of 2013-2014, when more than one thousand entries were created, was followed by years of more moderate growth. A first major acceleration occurred in 2017, with 290 new entries; an even more pronounced surge came in 2020, when 440 entries were created, followed by 231 in 2021. The threshold of 2,000 entries was thus passed in 2020, and that of 2,500 in 2024. After the slowdown of 2022-2024, production began to increase again: 99 new entries in 2025 and already 89 in the first eight months of 2026.

These figures, however, describe only part of Ereticopedia. The overall number of pages created on the website is considerably higher than the number of main entries. The Dictionary also includes a section containing 89 Chronological Lists, devoted primarily to inquisitors, magistracies, ecclesiastical institutions, and successions of office-holders, as well as numerous secondary entries, used for specific in-depth studies connected to the main entries. These also include transcriptions and editions of primary sources, allowing the website to combine its encyclopedic function with that of a repository and publication platform for documentary materials.

This distinction is important: the 2,712 entries constitute the main and most readily quantifiable core, but Ereticopedia has by now developed into a much more complex structure, in which biographies, thematic entries, chronological lists, in-depth studies, and primary sources are connected through a network of internal cross-references.

This structure also includes the scholarly journal Quaderni eretici. Studi sul dissenso politico, religioso e letterario, hosted directly within Ereticopedia (www.ereticopedia.org/rivista). The presence of the journal further broadens the scope of the website: Ereticopedia is therefore not simply a digital dictionary, but also a space for the publication and dissemination of scholarly research, in which reference materials, in-depth studies, editions of primary sources, and research contributions coexist within the same infrastructure.

It should also be borne in mind that as the number of entries grows, so inevitably does the amount of work required to maintain the project. Each new entry is not simply an additional piece of content, but becomes part of a larger body of material that must be periodically checked, updated, and supplemented. As the Dictionary expands, therefore, more time must be devoted to revising existing entries, updating bibliographies and links, correcting errors, and ensuring the consistency of internal cross-references. Quantitative growth, in other words, generates an increasing need for qualitative maintenance, which represents one of the main challenges for Ereticopedia’s long-term sustainability.

A new phase: artificial intelligence

In recent years, another factor has emerged that could potentially influence the evolution of the project: the development of generative artificial intelligence. AI tools can now facilitate certain preliminary and repetitive operations – identifying and organizing information, comparing texts and reference works, processing data, and formal revision – considerably reducing the time required for tasks that previously made the expansion of a digital project managed with limited resources particularly demanding.

AI does not, of course, replace scholarly oversight, source verification, or authorial responsibility. It can, however, become a particularly effective support tool for a project such as Ereticopedia, which from the outset has been based on an agile structure and extremely low operating costs. It is perhaps no coincidence that 2025-2026 has seen a renewed acceleration after several years of slower growth.

In any case, the quantitative history of Ereticopedia reveals a fact that is difficult to dispute: the project has not simply endured over time, but has continued to accumulate and organize content for thirteen years. From the 625 entries created in its first year to the more than 2,700 available today, a broader digital infrastructure has progressively developed around the Dictionary, encompassing thousands of pages, chronological lists, in-depth studies, primary sources, and a scholarly journal.

Artificial intelligence could now open a further phase, making it possible to accelerate the project's development without sacrificing the economic and organizational sustainability that has, from the very beginning, been one of the principal reasons for Ereticopedia's longevity.