ATMA is a thematic digital library devoted to the technical works of the Western military tradition (tactics, military architecture, ballistics, etc.) from the 16th to the early 17th century. Its aim is to make these texts accessible and facilitate their consultation and study through a series of online digital tools:
3D models
interactive maps
technical glossary
identification of intertextual references (in progress)
“text” version by OCR (in progress)
The project, launched in September 2022, is in its initial phase: ATMA currently has 75 digitised texts (3 of which have been OCR’ed and can be searched using lexical terms), 2 author biographies, 1 3D technical illustration, a geographical map and 1 technical glossary.
Lodovico is a multi-tenant media library hosting an increasing number of cultural institutions from the Emilia-Romagna region (currently it has about 30 participants). The Lodovico Media Library is conceived has a repository for digitized collections from libraries, museums and archives. Among the most relevant digital collections for Renaissance studies: the letters of Lucrezia Borgia; the Jewish fragments; documents from the Este and Farnese court. It has about 126,000 digital objects.
IDEA: Isabella d’Este Archive is redesigned, and back online. IDEA includes manuscript visualizations, videos, and a virtual model of Isabella d’Este’s famous studiolo as well as a Zotero bibliography of materials relating to Isabella and the Italian Renaissance. See IDEA’s News link for book announcements and other relevant notices.
Urus is a guide for academics and general users interested in the themes of production and reception of prints in Poland, Lithuania, and Prussia from the 15th to the 17th centuries. The database takes its name from the aurochs — or urus in Latin — a now-extinct species of large wild cattle whose habitat in the 16th century was already limited to remote corners of Eastern European forests. The ambition of the Urus project is to collect hitherto insufficiently explored instances of Early Modern printmaking and print consumption in Poland, Lithuania, and Prussia. The database provides an insight into robust East and Central European material, both textual and iconographic, and its far-reaching connections.
The making of Urus brought together members of two scientific projects led by Professor Grażyna Jurkowlaniec and funded by the National Science Centre, Poland: “Reframed Image: Reception of Prints in the Kingdom of Poland from the End of the Fifteenth to the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century” (2016–2020) and “Matrix of Confusion: The Production of Woodcut Illustrations in Poland–Lithuania and Prussia until the Early Seventeenth Century” (2019–2023).
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.
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.)
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).
