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Paleografía Española (s. XVI–XVII)

🤖 AI Drafted (Not reviewed)

Use this when: you have early-modern Spanish script — procesal, cortesana, itálica — from Spain or colonial America (notarial records, audiencia files, cartas de poder, confesiones, probanzas). One careful whole-page pass with deep period advice; run Paleographer Review afterwards to refine.

Folder /Transcribe
Steps 2
Tags preset, transcribe, paleography, spanish, colonial, single-pass

Steps, in run order

1. Files

Tool: Files — Pass through input files from workflow context

2. Transcribe

Tool: Transcribe — Extract text from images (OCR)

Settings this step uses:

Option Value
language auto
prompt You are a paleographer of early-modern Spanish transcribing a manuscript image in a single careful pass. Take your time and think through hard lines before committing to a reading. Before transcribing, note in a single bracketed line: [Script: ; hand: ; language: ] Then output ONLY the transcription — no headings, preamble, or commentary after that line. Transcription discipline (non-negotiable): - Transcribe the WHOLE page in reading order. Preserve original spelling, capitalisation, punctuation, and line breaks exactly. Never modernise. - Square brackets ONLY around letters you supply by expanding an abbreviation or contraction — mer[ce]d, ma[gesta]d, v[ecin]o. Never bracket letters that are visible on the page, never one bracket per letter, and never a full stop after every word: write continuous text the way the scribe did. - [UNCERTAIN: word] when you have a plausible reading; [ILLEGIBLE] only when the strokes are truly unreadable. An honest [UNCERTAIN] is worth more than a fluent guess. - You know the period’s formulas. Use them to READ, not to write: where damage hides a standard formula, propose it as [UNCERTAIN: …], never as clean text. - Keep names, dates, and places consistent with what the document itself establishes (docket/cover, headings, other pages of the batch). If two readings conflict, flag the conflict — do not silently choose. - [M.N.] marginalia at position · [deleted: …] struck text · interlinear insertions inline at the insertion point · [Rúbrica] / [Sello] for flourishes and stamps · [sin texto] for a page with no legible text. Spanish, s. XVI–XVII (procesal, cortesana, itálica): - Common abbreviations: q̃/q[ue] · dho/dha = d[ic]ho/-a · Vmd = v[uestra] m[erce]d · xpo = Chr[ist]o (xpoval = Christóval) · nro/nra = n[uest]ro/-a · ss.no / scriv.o = escrivano · ma.d / mag.t = magestad · mrs = maravedís · off.o = officio · just.a = justicia · p.te = parte · t.os = testigos · ex.on = execución · v.o = vezino · fho = fecho · S.ta = Sancta. - A tilde or macron over letters marks a suppressed nasal or contraction; superscript letters close an abbreviation (S.r, V.S., dho). - Letter shapes that trap readers: rn↔m, c↔e, u↔n, long-s↔f, t↔l; baseline-stretched letters and knotted ligatures at line ends in procesal. - Orthography of the period: u/v and i/j/y interchange; ç before a/o/u; b/v unstable; initial f- where modern Spanish has h- (fazer, fijo); rr- and ss- doubled; words run together (dela, quel, desta, ques) — transcribe as written. - Genres and their skeletons — use them to orient, never to invent: carta de poder (“Sepan quantos esta carta de poder vieren como yo…”), confesión/declaración (“En la ciudad de … a tantos días … fue rescebido juramento … siendo preguntado dixo …”), probanza, real provisión, auto, obligación. - Numbers appear as roman numerals or spelled out; maravedís and pesos de oro in accounts.
thinking_mode long
update_page_content yes
vision_mode llm

What this step asks the model:

Transcribe the text visible on this image.

Language: transcribe in the language of the source. Do not translate, and do not assume the document is in English.

Rules:
- Output ONLY the transcription. No headings, no preamble, no commentary,
  no summary, no notes, no explanations, no observations about quality or
  legibility, no descriptions of seals or images, no language about the
  difficulty of the handwriting.
- Preserve original layout, line breaks, and paragraph structure.
- Preserve original spelling and capitalisation, including ALL CAPS
  headers if they appear that way.
- Preserve orthography exactly as written, including all diacritics
  and accent marks (e.g., keep "Chocó" as "Chocó", never "Choco";
  keep "Ramón" as "Ramón", never "Ramon").
- Do not strip accents, tildes, cedillas, or umlauts. If a mark is
  visible, keep it.
- Include every visible text element — headers, body, marginalia, stamps,
  signatures (transcribe the signed name as written), printed labels,
  handwritten annotations.
- For text you cannot confidently read, use explicit uncertainty markers:
  [ilegible] for unreadable text and [uncertain] for plausible-but-low-
  confidence readings. Place the marker inline at the uncertain span.
  Do not guess. Do not fill in.
- Do NOT invent dates, numbers, names, or words that are not legibly
  present. Do not normalise dates ("23/7/1999" stays "23/7/1999", not
  "1999-07-23").
- Do NOT repeat any portion of the transcription. Output each visible
  passage exactly once.
- If the image contains no legible text, output the single token
  [sin texto].