Enriched categories as a free cocompletion (Q904009)

The authors provide another extension of the classical theory of categories enriched in a monoidal category of [\textit{G. M. Kelly}, Basic concepts of enriched category theory. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press (1982; Zbl 0478.18005)]. Motivated by the fact that bicategories of [\textit{J. Bénabou}, ``Introduction to bicategories'', in: Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar. Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer-Verlag. Lect. Notes Math. 47, 1--77 (1967; Zbl 0165.33001)] can not be described as classical enriched categories, they propose a more general theory of enrichment, which stands in the same relation to the notion of bicategory as does the theory of \(\mathcal{V}\)-categories (for a monoidal category \(\mathcal{V}\)) to the notion of ordinary category. More precisely, taking \(\mathcal{V}\) to be monoidal bicategory [\textit{R. Gordon} et al., ``Coherence for tricategories'', Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 558, 81 p. (1995; Zbl 0836.18001)], the authors consider the theory of \(\mathcal{V}\)-bicategories up to the free cocompletion of an enriched bicategory under a class of colimits. If \(\mathcal{V}\) is the cartesian monoidal bicategory \textbf{Cat}, one recaptures the notion of (locally small) bicategory. Moreover, the paper shows that the construction ``\(\mathcal{C}\mapsto\) categories enriched in \(\mathcal{C}\)'', for a bicategory \(\mathcal{C}\), has a universal property, namely, is the free cocompletion of a certain kind of enriched bicategory under a certain class of weighted bicolimits. The paper is well written, provides some of its required preliminaries, and will be of use to all the researchers, interested in enriched category theory.