DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Documents: Guest edited by Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila)
Andrew Hopkins, ‘Glossary of acronyms used in Digital Humanities’ 27s/AHG
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Digital Humanities for art history 2022: A snapshot’ 27s/AH1
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘COVID, CO2, and the future of the Digital Humanities 2022’ 27s/AH2
Silvio Peroni and Francesca Tomasi (Alma Mater Studiorum, Bologna), ‘Approaching Digital Humanities at university: A cultural challenge’ 27s/SPFT1
Teresa Nocita (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Between visual art and visual text. Intermediality and hypertext: A possible combination for twenty-first century philology’ 27s/TN1
Alessandro Adamou (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome), ‘Shout LOUD on a road trip to FAIRness: experience with integrating open research data at the Bibliotheca Hertziana’ 27s/AA1
Elisa Bastianello (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome), ‘Digital Editions at the Bibliotheca Hertziana’ 27s/EB01
Cristiana Pasqualetti (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Monumenti storici e artistici della città dell’Aquila e suoi contorni by Angelo Leosini (1848) as a digital semantic corpus online’ 27s/CP1
Ludovica Galeazzo, (Villa I Tatti, Florence), ‘Analysing Urban Dynamics in Historic Settlements Using a Geo-Spatial Infrastructure. The Venice’s Nissology project’ 27s/LG1
Remo Grillo (Villa I Tatti, Florence), ‘Representing change: User interaction and data modelling of an identity paradox’ 27s/RG1
Franziska Lampe (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich), ‘Activate the Archive: Photographic art reproductions from the Bruckmann Verlag and their potential digital futures’ 27s/FL1
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Flying to the moon, or flying too close to the sun: Failure in the Digital Humanities’ 27s/AH3
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Digital Humanities 1981–2021: A personal timeline’ 27s/AH4
Szilvia Szeréna Baráth (University of Bologna), Amanda Culoma (University of Bologna), Giulia Morini (Independent), ‘Rediscovering Pantelleria beyond the sea’ 27s/SSBACGM1
Anna Ghiraldini (Independent), ‘From analog to digital: The archive of Enzo Mari as a case study’ 27s/AG1
Erica Andreose (Independent), ‘The miniatures of the antiphonaries of the Diocesan Library of Chioggia: a digital life’ 27s/EA1
Laia Anguix-Vilches (Radboud University, The Netherlands), ‘Women in museums: An interdisciplinary approach to the history of the first female administrators in European cultural institutions’ 27s/LAV1
Maria Francesca Bocchi (Independent), ‘Apollo and Daphne and iconographic research: digital methodologies for art history’ 27s/MB1
Marianna Cuomo (University of Suor Orsola Benincasa – Naples), ‘Framing devices for works of art and hypotheses for an immersive use of cultural patrimony’ 27s/MC1
Filippo Lanci (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘A project for the digitisation of testimonies regarding the cult of St Berardo of Teramo’ 27s/FL1
Marialuisa Lustri (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Venice and the Adriatic side of the Kingdom of Naples: imports and influences of Venetian art’ 27s/MLL1
Diana Sainz Camayd (University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”), ‘Leosini’s Monumenti storici artistici della città di Aquila e suoi contorni: transcribing the author’s annotated copy’ 27s/DSC1
Abstracts
Documents: Guest edited by Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila)
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Glossary of acronyms used in Digital Humanities’ 27s/AHG (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004194)
Abstract: A glossary of acronyms used in Digital Humanities compiled by the organizer and contributors to a conference on the subject held at the Università degli studi dell’Aquila in the summer of 2022.
Key words: glossary, acronyms, Digital Humanities, computing
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Digital Humanities for art history 2022: A snapshot’ 27s/AH1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004195)
Abstract: The Summer School dedicated to Digital Humanities (DH) for Art History, held between 27 June and 1 July 2022 at the Department of Excellence of the Department of Human Sciences (DSU Scienze Umane) of the University of L’Aquila, represented a singular opportunity for an in-depth snapshot of a discipline that, de facto, has only recently managed to carve out a defined space within academia. This, all the while for decades having been a fundamental component of many research institutes’ activities and at the same time acquiring a predominant role in the vast world of protection, enhancement and dissemination of cultural patrimony.
Keywords: Digital Humanities, art history, L’Aquila, cultural patrimony.
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘COVID, CO2, and the future of the Digital Humanities 2022’ 27s/AH2 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004196)
Abstract: The coincidence, in the years 2020–2022, of COVID and increasing worldwide concern about carbon footprints, would appear to culminate in an obvious direction for the future of the DH: the necessity to push forward with mass digitisation so that scholars do not need to fly around the world to study unique objects such as manuscripts, and the move to exclusively digital publishing in order to avoid generating carbon footprints for books and journals which, now in 2022, appear to be entirely unnecessary to publish in print and more akin to driving around in a 1950s Cadillac. The proposition to stop most or all print publishing in academia may have been unthinkable even a decade ago, but in the current situation, and the forseeable future, it would be the most effective way for scholarship and scholars to make their contribution to de-carbonisation.
Key words: communication, Mobility, carbon footprint
Silvio Peroni and Francesca Tomasi (Alma Mater Studiorum, Bologna), ‘Approaching Digital Humanities at university: A cultural challenge’ 27s/SPFT1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004197)
Abstract: The University of Bologna has a long tradition in Digital Humanities, both at the level of research and teaching. This article presents some experiences in developing new educational models based on the idea of transversal learning, collaborative approaches and project-oriented outputs, together with the definition of research fields within this vast domain, accompanied by practical examples. The creation of an international master’s degree (DHDK), a PhD programme (CHeDE) and a research centre (/DH.arc) are the results of refining the notion of the DH in a new bidirectional way: to reflect on computational methodologies and models in the cultural sphere and to suggest a cultural approach to Information Technology (IT).
Key words: Digital Humanities, university teaching, Masters degree, PhD programme, Information Technology
Teresa Nocita (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Between visual art and visual text. Intermediality and hypertext: A possible combination for twenty-first century philology’ 27s/TN1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004198)
Abstract: The birth of digital writing, characterized by a process of correction that implies the omission of the preparatory editorial phases of a literary text, has brought about an epochal change in the author-text relationship, now characterized, for the first time in literary history, by the disappearance of autograph documentation. This evident loss would seem to threaten the survival of twenty-first century philology, destined to operate despite the absence of the author’s handwritten documents. But the genetic reconstruction of the text, if taken as a speculative habitus and common research practice, can constitute a valid answer and a new possibility for future philological inquiry which combines literature, music and art in a new Hypermedia.
The compositional history of the work and that of its dissemination can be exemplified by an exhibition of typologically diverse materials, such as images, sounds, videos, which allow us to contextualize the literary text through a multidisciplinary creative process and to reconnect it to the very important and popular field of intermediality studies. This article proposes a few samples of this new research approach regarding Giovanni Boccaccio and his literary masterpiece Decameron.
Keywords: visual art, visual text, intermediality, genèse du texte, philology, Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron.
Alessandro Adamou (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome), ‘Shout LOUD on a road trip to FAIRness: experience with integrating open research data at the Bibliotheca Hertziana’ 27s/AA1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004199)
Abstract. Modern-day research in digital humanities is an inherently intersectional activity that borrows from, and in turn contributes to, a multitude of domains previously seen as having little bearing on the discipline at hand. Art history, for instance, operates today at the crossroads of social studies, digital libraries, geographical information systems, data modelling, and cognitive computing, yet its problems inform research questions within all of these fields, which veer towards making the output of prior research readily available to humanists in their interaction with digital resources. This is reflected in the way data are represented, stored and published: with various intra- and inter-institutional research endeavours relying upon output that could and should be shared, the notion of ‘leaving the data silo’ with a view on interoperability acquires even greater significance. Scholars and policymakers are supporting this view with guidelines, such as the FAIR principles, and standards, such as Linked Open Data, that implement them, with technologies whose coverage, complexity and lifespans vary. A point is being approached, however, where the technological opportunities permit a continuous interoperability between established and concluded data-intensive projects, and current projects whose underlying datasets evolve. This enables the data production of one institution to be viewed as one harmonically interlinked knowledge graph, which can be queried through a global understanding of the ontological models that dominate the fields involved. This paper is an overview of past and present efforts of mine in the creation of digital humanities knowledge graphs over the past decade, from music history to the societal ramifications of the history of architecture. This contribution highlights the variability of concurrent research environments at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, not only in the state of their activities, but also in the ways they manage their data life-cycles, and exemplifies possible combinations of FAIR data management platforms and integration techniques, suitable for different scenarios resulting from such variability. The paper concludes with an example of how feedback from the art history domain called for novel directions for data science and Semantic Web scholars to follow, by proposing that the Linked Open Data paradigm adopt a notion of usability in the very morphology of published data, thus becoming Linked Open Usable Data.
Keywords: digital cartography, digital libraries, knowledge graphs, data integration, research data publishing
Elisa Bastianello (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome), ‘Digital Editions at the Bibliotheca Hertziana’ 27s/EB01 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004200)
Abstract: Digital editions of books are enjoying a tremendous success in recent years, especially after COVID pandemics limited the access to physical books. But digital editions can be much more than just a digital reproduction of the pages of a printed book. For this reason, the Bibliotheca Hertziana, among other institutions, is investing lot of resources in order to improve the offer of digital publications, with the support of new technologies such as neural text recognition. Crucial points include the use of shared standards such as TEI XML and open source platforms such as TEI Publisher to ensure long-term accessibility and preservation.
Keywords: digital edition, digital publishing, HTR, Transkribus, TEI XML, Tei Publisher
Cristiana Pasqualetti (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Monumenti storici e artistici della città dell’Aquila e suoi contorni by Angelo Leosini (1848) as a digital semantic corpus online’ 27s/CP1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004201)
Abstract: Monumenti storici artistici della città di Aquila e suoi contorni colle notizie de’ pittori scultori architetti ed altri artefici che vi fiorirono (L’Aquila 1848), a book by Angelo Leosini, addresses the theme of the city’s identity through the description of its monuments, with the explicit purpose of tracing the history of L’Aquila’s art for the very first time. Starting from the digitisation and transcription of Leosini’s personal, densely annotated copy in the Biblioteca ‘Salvatore Tommasi’ in L’Aquila, the research project will be rendered in its layered complexity through the publication online of the author’s personal copy ––transcribed, annotated, and with hypertext links to bibliographical and iconographical information supported by advanced user-assisting techniques for searching semantic information.
Keywords: Angelo Leosini, L’Aquila, artistic heritage, artistic patrimony, art historiography, digital publication
Ludovica Galeazzo, (Villa I Tatti, Florence), ‘Analysing Urban Dynamics in Historic Settlements Using a Geo-Spatial Infrastructure. The Venice’s Nissology project’ 27s/LG1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004201)
Abstract: This paper presents the ERC StG project Venice’s Nissology (VeNiss), a semantic geo-spatial web infrastructure for reconstructing over five-centuries of transformations of Venice’s lagoon islands, alongside their interwoven relationships in a geographically- and temporally-based digital environment. VeNiss constitutes the first analytical methodology for investigating, interpreting, and visualising, through computational media, the connective dynamics of centre-periphery relations in historic settlements, with specific reference to archipelagoes. Through a transdisciplinary approach, which combines history, architecture, art history, social studies, and advanced digital technologies the research infrastructure enables the intersection of historical data with georeferenced maps, 2D reconstructions, and 3D interoperable models to express the urban processes that shaped the lagoon city from the sixteenth century.
Keywords: Venetian lagoon, Venetian islands, digital urban history, ERC project, semantic web technologies
Remo Grillo (Villa I Tatti, Florence), ‘Representing change: User interaction and data modelling of an identity paradox’ 27s/RG1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004203)
Abstract: Historical data are challenging to represent, and this is especially true for objects whose identity undergoes several changes – physical and functional – over time, such as historic buildings. In the context of the VeNiss project, we introduce a technical conceptualisation of the philosophical problem of identity over time through the lens of the Cidoc-CRM, providing an outline of a data model and a UX/UI solution, both adopted to represent knowledge about the nuanced historical changes of buildings over time.
Keywords: knowledge graph, ontology, philosophy, identity, time, cidoc-crm, user interaction
Franziska Lampe (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich), ‘Activate the Archive: Photographic art reproductions from the Bruckmann Verlag and their potential digital futures’ 27s/FL1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004204)
Abstract: The following contribution is based on a first investigation of the historical image archive of the Bruckmann Verlag, one of the largest and most influential German publishing houses in the field of art reproduction at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. As only recently the archive is accessible for research at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, this text sets out some initial thoughts, as to why which research convolute and the related photo-objects are particularly recommended for digital projects, as well as to reveal the possible challenges involved.
Keywords: photo archive, database, colour photography, reproduction of art, photography, art publisher, Islamic art, photographic campaigns, research tool, print
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Flying to the moon, or flying too close to the sun: Failure in the Digital Humanities’ 27s/AH3 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004205)
Abstract: It is surprising how difficult it is to share hard-won wisdom regarding the Digital Humanities, even in the context of scholarly and academic institutions. Yet this cone of silence and evasion impedes progress, without question, yet it is not clear at all what can be done about this issue if institutional figures feel they cannot talk about it.
Keywords: Digital Humanities, scholarly institutions, academic institutions, failure, failed projects
Andrew Hopkins (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Digital Humanities 1981–2021: A personal timeline’ 27s/AH4 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004206)
Abstract: Future generations of Humanists will likely have no clue of how the Digital Humanities developed so key recollections are here set out in a personal timeline that perhaps can serve as a reference in the future for historiography as experienced by an art and architectural historian.
Keywords: Digital Humanities, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s
Szilvia Szeréna Baráth (University of Bologna), Amanda Culoma (University of Bologna), Giulia Morini (Independent), ‘Rediscovering Pantelleria beyond the sea’, 27s/SSBACGM1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004207)
Abstract: This paper sets out a concept for a seasonal virtual exhibition located inside the Barbacane Castle on the island of Pantelleria. The virtual exhibition involves the animation of the cultural heritage icons of the island such as the Imperial portraits of Caesar, Tito and Antonia Minore, and the Goddess Tanit, and the creation of a fictional 3-dimensional, animated character: an Eneolithic boy. The aim of the project is to educate tourists towards a more conscious tourism on the island through the use of storytelling, augmented reality and animation.
Keywords: augmented reality (AR), animation, iconographic heritage, intangible cultural heritage, Pantelleria, virtual exhibition
Anna Ghiraldini (Independent), ‘From analog to digital: The archive of Enzo Mari as a case study’ 27s/AG1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004208)
Abstract: The paper presents a digital project I developed for the archive of Enzo Mari preserved at the CSAC (Study Centre and Communication Archive, CSAC) of the University of Parma (Italy) as part of my doctoral thesis. By taking into account the efforts made by national and international institutions, a project of a prototype has been developed, presenting a part of the author’s research and production between the Fifties and the Nineties organised in categories, with the will to share with a large audience of scholars and enthusiasts. The work has been conducted with the digital support of Italian company Hyperborea.
Keywords: design, memory, Enzo Mari, digitisation, archive
Erica Andreose (Independent), ‘The miniatures of the antiphonaries of the Diocesan Library of Chioggia: a digital life’ 27s/EA1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004209)
Abstract: The research project presented here is the creation of a digital life for the art- historical information that emerged from research into the miniatures of the antiphonaries of the Diocesan Library of Chioggia. The result is a small digital space where one can visualize textual and multimedia content concerning the illuminated capilettera found inside three antiphonaries of the Diocesan Library of Chioggia (Venezia), in manuscripts 4523, 4527 and 4528 respectively. An intuitive web platform allows the user to navigate between various general sections and two catalogues through the use of search filters set to refine the selection of items within them.
Keywords: Chioggia, Diocesan Library, antiphonaries, multimedia
Laia Anguix-Vilches (Radboud University, The Netherlands), ‘Women in museums: An interdisciplinary approach to the history of the first female administrators in European cultural institutions’ 27s/LAV1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004210)
Abstract: The European Commission is currently making efforts to address the persistent gender inequality in the decision-making roles of museums and cultural heritage institutions. This research project – presented in June 2022 at the Summer School in Digital Humanities organised by the Department of Human Sciences at the Universita degli Studi dell’Aquila – explores the extent to which this ‘glass ceiling’ in the sector may be linked with the historical, twentieth-century gender-biased development of the curatorial profession. The project’s research methodology combines archival research and digital humanities with semi-structured interviews and statistical analysis, in order to uncover the circumstances in which women started accessing the curatorial profession in Europe, and to unearth the significance of twentieth-century female curatorial work.
Keywords: museum history, women curators, women’s history, Digital Humanities, cultural heritage institutions
Maria Francesca Bocchi (Independent), ‘Apollo and Daphne and iconographic research: digital methodologies for art history’ 27s/MB1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.4078)
Abstract: the project, called “Apollo and Daphne and iconographic research: digital methodologies for art history”, focuses on the digitalisation of relevant works of art and extends their use and reuse on the web, eventually exploring some tools that could improve iconographic research. As a case study, 25 works of art representing the myth of Apollo and Daphne produced from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries in all fields of art, such as sculpture, painting and illuminated manuscripts have been chosen. These 25 images belonging from different historical and artistical periods were enough to create an iconographic canon that can been studied using digital tools. The choice of Ovid’s myth was motivated by the deep connection between the text (original and translated) and the huge artistic production on the mythological subject increased by the fifteenth century because of renewed interest in the Latin poem and classical world in general.
Keywords: Apollo, Daphne, Ovid, Iconos project
Marianna Cuomo (University of Suor Orsola Benincasa – Naples), ‘Framing devices for works of art and hypotheses for an immersive use of cultural patrimony’ 27s/MC1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004212)
Abstract: The project envisages the development of innovative and immersive fruitive solutions through the use of an eye tracking device, capable of identifying the points of greatest interest for an observer and, therefore, of suggesting possible set-up criteria useful for maximizing the visiting experience on a cognitive level. The project focuses on a specific category of frames characterised by a complex wealth of information that is, through the presence of repetitive decorative motifs, also extended to less elaborate types (up to and including images without borders), in order to identify whether and which of these can be considered ‘indices’ and vehicles capable of catalysing the attention of observers towards specific aspects of a visual construct.
Keywords: framing, art, immersive cultural patrimony
Filippo Lanci (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Project work for a digitisation of testimonies regarding the cult of St Berardo of Teramo’ 27s/FL1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004213)
Abstract: The aim of this project, developed by the conclusion of the Summer School, is to recompose a corpus of sacred images and texts concerning the cult of St. Berardo, the holy patron of Diocese and town of Teramo. This interesting corpus was produced under the episcopates of Vincenzo Bugiatti da Montesanto (1592–1609) and Giambattista Maria Visconti (1609–1638), aimed to liturgical or devotional use in the Cathedral, and preserved in the same church or in its archive.
Keywords: St Berardo, Vincenzo Bugiatti da Montesanto, Giambattista Maria Visconti, Cathedral of Teramo
Marialuisa Lustri (Università degli studi dell’Aquila), ‘Venice and the Adriatic side of the Kingdom of Naples: imports and influences of Venetian art’ 27s/MLL1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004214)
Abstract: This project proposal is for the application of IT tools in order to consider a “cross-media” translation of data obtained, so that they can be used as an alternative to simple textual consultation, with respect to the reconstruction of the geography and history of Venetian works of art in the Adriatic regions of the Kingdom of Naples between the Middle Ages and the early modern age. The overall aim of the work is namely to carry out an analysis of Venetian presences and influences in the artistic production of Abruzzo, Molise and Apulia, also considering the transversal relations of this area with the Balkan regions under Venetian rule.
Keywords: Venice, Naples, Adriatic, Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia
Diana Sainz Camayd (University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”), ‘Leosini’s Monumenti storici artistici della città di Aquila e suoi contorni: transcribing the author’s annotated copy’ 27s/DSC1 (https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00004211)
Abstract: This paper, written for the Summer School at L’Aquila, gives a brief overview of the current status of the ongoing research project for the digital edition of the Monumenti storici artistici della città di Aquila e suoi contornicolle notizie de’ pittori scultori architetti ed altri artefici che vi fiorirono (L’Aquila, 1848) by Angelo Leosini (L’Aquila, 1818–1881), with particular attention to the task of text transcription and markup.
Keywords: L’Aquila, Angelo Leosini, Monumenti storici artistici
Journal of Art Historiography 