The project Magnetic Margins investigates how and by whom the most important early modern book publications on magnetism were read and annotated. This database provides a census of major publications in this field of study and maps annotations in the individual copies of these editions.
Rara Magnetica (1269-1599) is the name of Gustav Hellmann’s well known anthology published in 1898. With this collection, he sought to provide access to some of the earliest, yet rare publications in the field of geomagnetism that predated William Gilbert’s landmark publication De Magnete of 1600. The digital project and platform Rara Magnetica translates these efforts into the digital domain, going far beyond digital editions.
The need to publish important but understudied sources is most efficiently achieved by providing curated digital structured and linked data. Rara Magnetica hence – as an ongoing project – is both a repository and an interactive research platform. It publishes scans and transcriptions of (many hitherto unpublished) sources, data visualizations, and databases, all related to the premodern study of magnetism. Moreover, it provides various tools to investigate each of these resources independently and in combination. A major aim in fact is to enhance multimodal analyses that transcend media barriers by allowing to research imagery along with full texts, material sources along with their conceptual content. This is achieved by various but interlinked tools providing different ways of looking at the same sources.
The Virtual St Paul’s Cathedral Project recreates two full days in St Paul’s Cathedral — an ordinary (or ferial) day, the Tuesday after the First Sunday in Advent in 1625 and a Festival Day, Easter Sunday in 1624. These services reflect, in the choice of music and in other ways, differences in style of performance reflecting the difference between a festival, or special occasion and an ordinary, everyday occasion.
The Virtual St Paul’s Cathedral Project contains resources for understanding worship in English cathedrals and parish churches in the early seventeenth century. Chief among them are auralized recordings of the services appointed for use every day of the year — the Divine Services of Morning Prayer (Matins) and Evening Prayer (Evensong) — as well as services appointed for a narrower range of days — (the Great Litany, appointed for Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays and Holy Communion, appointed for Sundays and Holy Days).
The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project uses digital modeling technology to create the experience of hearing John Donne’s sermon for Gunpowder Day, November 5th, 1622, from within a detailed visual and acoustic model of Paul’s Churchyard. The user can hear Donne’s sermon unfold in real time from 8 different positions in the Churchyard and in the presence of 4 different sizes of crowd, all the while immersed in the sounds of early modern London.
The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project enables us to experience Donne’s sermon as a performed event that unfolds in real time as a complement to our ability to study it as a printed text or theological essay.
The Virtual Trinity Chapel Project brings together an extensive array of materials documenting the Service of Consecration for Trinity Chapel, Lincoln’s Inn, on Thursday, May 22nd, 1623. Materials include visual models recreating the interior and exterior of Trinity Chapel on that occasion, as well as documents describing what happened, who took part, and what they made of it afterwards.
The service of Consecration for Trinity Chapel turns out to have been one of the most fully documented worship services to take place in England in the early modern period. As a result, we have been able to recreate a remarkably detailed, almost minute-by-minute account of the service itself, as well as what some of those in attendance made of it in retrospect.
The Virtual John Donne Project uses digital modeling technology to to enable users to explore the lived religion of England in the early seventeenth century. This site provides quick access to visual and acoustic recreations of worship services and preaching inside St Paul’s Cathedral and in Paul’s Churchyard, as well as inside Trinity Chapel at Lincoln’s Inn, while John Donne was Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Our goal is to recreate worship services in the specific settings of their original performance so they may be experienced as they unfold in real time. To the vast majority of the English the reformed Church of England was defined by the occasions of corporate, liturgical, and sacramental worship they participated in and were formed by. These services brought the private events of their lives — from birth to marriage to death — into the realm of public life.
http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/29070
The Renaissance art in Puglia and Basilicata is much less known than the heavily touristed and much studied sites in central Italy. Life-sized painted sculptures, many carved out of local stone, inhabit rough-walled cave churches and elaborate classically inspired mausolea. An elegantly attired angel hacks repeatedly at a cowering dragon, a saint looks unperturbed as her fingers sink into a lion’s mouth, a mother grins toothily as she cuddles her baby, and shepherds blow into bagpipes while stone sheep graze nearby. Artists placed holy narratives in spaces like the rocky landscape around them, and dressed sacred personages in local dress, while at the same time harkening back to an ancient past shrouded in myth and mystery. The art is both distinctively local and cosmopolitan, drawing upon influences from around the Adriatic and beyond. This open access database offers high-resolution images of and information about (with a catalog entry and bibliography for each work) over 100 objects, along with an interactive digital map. Approximately 1,000 high-resolution photographs can be downloaded and used free of charge for research, teaching, and publication. This database was created by Claire Litt and Una D’Elia (Queen’s University).
In addition to supporting scholarship on this understudied region by offering open access photographs, this database is a rich resource for teaching, as students can carry out research, curate, and publish their own virtual exhibitions using the database. (Links to undergraduate and graduate student exhibitions are provided on the homepage.)
http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/29202
The mountains and lakes of Lombardy and Piedmont are both picturesque and rich with little-known cultural heritage. In the Renaissance and Baroque, northern Italy, which bordered Protestant lands, was central to promoting and supporting the Catholic faith. Life-sized painted sculptures made of wood, terracotta, and other materials were arranged to create naturalistic tableaux in chapels on holy mountains (Sacri Monti), pilgrimage sites which the devout visited at night, whipping themselves before sculptures must have seemed to come to life by the flickering light of lanterns. Sculpted bodies with a range of skin tones, some thin from suffering and illness and others Herculean in their muscular energy, have actual hair and are bound with real ropes or eat from real dishes. Other fleshy sculptures inhabit huge, theatrical altarpieces. Many of these living statues continue to be the focus of cult today and so are adorned with real jewelry and other offerings made by the faithful. These sculptures are site specific, embedded in the landscape, politics, and devotional practices of the region, but also the work of cosmopolitan artists and patrons with international connections. This database offers high-resolution images of and information about over 185 sculptures and sculptural groups, along with an interactive digital map. The information is in the form of a catalog entry with bibliography for each sculpture or sculptural group. Over 1,300 high-resolution photographs are available for download and can be used free of charge for research, teaching, and publication. This database was created by Kennis Forte and Una D’Elia (Queen’s University).
In addition to supporting scholarship in this understudied area by offering open access photographs that can be published free of charge, this database is a rich resource for teaching, as students can carry out research, curate, and publish their own virtual exhibitions using the database (links to undergraduate and graduate student exhibitions provided on the homepage).
https://edblogs.columbia.edu/worldepics/
This collaborative website is devoted to epics from across the globe, including epic narratives in theatrical dramatizations, puppetry arts, music, visual art, and film. It aims likewise to showcase websites and teaching resources developed by colleagues featuring both literary and oral epics, from the ancient world to today. Several Renaissance epics are included. Inquiries and submissions welcome.
https://edblogs.columbia.edu/eboiardo/
The eBOIARDO website features theatrical, musical, and artistic representations based on Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and other Italian Renaissance romance epics. The site contains numerous videos of chivalric adaptations staged in Sicilian opera dei pupi and the epic Maggio tradition of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines.
