Click any of the links below for more information about the listed resource, including: contact information, resources offered, terms of access, reproduction services/policies, and closing dates. Please contact the webmaster regarding additions, corrections, or broken/invalid links. Please note that these links are provided for user information but do not constitute professional advice or a formal recommendation. See our Disclaimer for more information.
Digital/Analog Resources
BiASA Periodici Italiani Digitalizzati
Digitized articles from 117 Italian periodicals published in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Bibliography on Premodern Women Artists and Patrons
A 130+ page bibliography on premodern women artists and patrons compiled by Pat Simons and Tracy Chapman Hamilton. Document includes sections on Asia, the Americas, Islamic Cultures, Southern Europe, and Northern Europe, but also on such matters as the media of “Textiles and Needlework.”
Ceramelli Papiani
Searchable database of coats of arms of approximately 8,000 Tuscan families
Dartmouth Dante Project
Searchable database of over seventy commentaries on Dante’s Divine Comedy
Decameron Web
Project hosted by the Italian Studies Department’s Virtual Humanities Lab at Brown University. Website dedicated to Boccaccio’s Decameron that includes searchable full-text in Italian (based on V. Branca’s 1992 Einaudi edition) and English translation (J. M. Rigg, 1903) as well as information on the book’s literary, historical, and cultural context.
Digital Dante
Presented by the Institute for Learning Technologies at Columbia University, Digital Dante offers searchable, full-text of Dante’s Divine Comedy in Italian alongside English translations by Henry W. Longfellow and Allen Mandelbaum.
Dizionario Biografico degli italiani
Searchable database of Italians who have contributed to the artistic, political, and cultural history of Italy after the fall of the Roman empire
Duomo di Firenze: The Years of the Cupola
Digital archive of documentary sources from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, 1417-1436
Early Modern Italy 1550-1800
A comprehensive digital bibliography of titles in English and French. The 10th edition totals just over 15,000 titles, embracing every aspect of Italian history, including art & architecture, literature, music and science. It also includes titles relating Italy to other countries. The bibliography begins with an overview of historiographical trends past and present over the last century and more.
Notify editor Gregory Hanlon of any errors or omissions.
Exhibitions Close-up
A caa.reviews/Alliance for Networking Visual Culture Project
Thanks to a generous grant from the Mellon-funded Alliance for Networking Visual Culture (http://scalar.usc.edu), caa.reviewshas been able to complete a pilot project using the Scalar multimedia digital platform to create a “book” that will permit its readers to experience virtually the recent exhibition Bernini: Sculpting in Clay (in its showing at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas). The caa.reviews/Scalar project features a number of elements including an introductory essay; a video walkthrough that permits visitors to this website to experience the exhibition as if moving through galleries, circulating around vitrines, and looking closely at objects; a floor plan of the exhibition; comparative illustrations of some of Bernini’s finished works; educational videos on Bernini’s modeling techniques as seen in his bozzetti for the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome, on hisKimbell modello for the Fountain of the Moor, and on his transformation of the city of Rome; critical reviews by a scholar and anartist; an interview with one of the exhibition’s curators; and suggestions for further reading with links to books reviewed oncaa.reviews (as well as to book reviews and articles on Bernini in The Art Bulletin). This project will permit readers ofcaa.reviews and others who were unable to visit this important show to experience it in a number of ways enabled by the Scalar digital platform. It is our hope at the journal that the project will demonstrate the usefulness of multimedia capabilities to enhance future exhibition reviews on caa.reviews.
Fondazione Memofonte
Founded in Florence in 2000 by Paola Barocchi, when it was only an association, Memofonte proposed the on-line publication of texts and images that were not easy to consult and have at hand in the ambit of artistic historiography and of history of collections from the XV to the XX century. Having become a Foundation (since December 2006), MEMOFONTE aims at reinforcing its identity and being more available for institutional purposes in order to offer updated instruments of research and conservation. The Foundation also aims at giving a contribution to the long experience of traditional editors (linked to the Studio per Edizioni Scelte S.P.E.S.) in order to offer an easy comparison of various fundamental editions and the access to unedited manuscripts that, because of their entity, can only be data managed through computers. The results obtained in quality of offered materials and in strong fruition, suggest the promotion of new collaborations with Cultural Boards and Universities, in order to improve the Archives that up to now have been created with a method focused on various research projects.
Website: http://www.memofonte.it/index.php
Getty Open Content Online Image Database
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.
The images available through the Open Content Program include works in the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collections and more than 72,000 photographs from the collection Foto Arte Minore: Max Hutzel photographs of art and architecture in Italy. Images from the Getty Research Institute and the Getty Conservation Institute continue to be added. Museum images can be found on the Museum’s Collection webpages or on the Getty Search Gateway. Those available as open content images are identified with a “Download” link. Images provided are JPEG files at a minimum of 300 DPI. See the Guidelines for Successful Printing for more information on file format.
If you need new photography, resizing, or color correction, you can request those services by Contacting Museum Rights & Reproductions. A fee will be charged for this service.
Getty Research Portal
The Getty Research Institute has launched the Getty Research Portal, an online search platform providing global access to digitized art history texts in the public domain. Through this multilingual, multicultural union catalog, scholars can search and download complete digital copies of publications for the study of art, architecture, material culture, and related fields. The Portal is free to all users.
Getty Vocabularies
The Getty vocabularies contain structured terminology for art, architecture, decorative arts and other material culture, archival materials, visual surrogates, and bibliographic materials. Compliant with international standards, they provide authoritative information for catalogers and researchers, and can be used to enhance access to databases and Web sites. The Getty Vocabularies include: The Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT); The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN); The Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA); and The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN).
Homeless Paintings of the Renaissance
In an exciting new venture, the Berenson Library of Villa I Tatti is partnering with metaLAB (at) Harvard, a research and teaching unit dedicated to pioneering initiatives in the digital humanities, to create a dynamic, interactive, free-standing database and web portal for the library’s collection of “Homeless Paintings of the Italian Renaissance.”
Isabella d’Este’s Tin-Glazed Ceramic Service
The Illustrated Credenza project focuses on Renaissance material culture. It is aimed at schools, universities and museums where the film can be shown as part of a gallery exhibition, study-day or, lecture.
Click here to read the project description.
Click here to view a short film featuring ceramicist Ester Mantovani who created replicas of the twenty-three surviving dishes from Isabella d’Este’s credenza di maiolica istoriata.
Italian-American History and Culture
A brief history of Italian immigrants in the United States with links to other online resources for the study of Italian-American culture provided by USCitizenship.info, a DIY on-line service to prepare and complete U.S. citizenship applications.
Italian Renaissance Learning Resources
An entirely free resource on Italian Renaissance art is available from Oxford University Press and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, generously supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Italian Renaissance Learning Resources features eight units on different themes of Italian Renaissance art, each with well-illustrated essays written by NGA staff, primary source documents, discussion questions, classroom activities, and glossary terms and biographies excerpted from Grove Art Online entries.
Researchers and students can explore thematic essays, more than 340 images, 300 glossary items and 42 primary source texts. An invaluable tool for use in the classroom, educators can integrate printable activity guides and discussion questions related to each unit into their course work.
Kunstmuseum Basel Online
The holdings of the Kunstmuseum Basel can now be consulted via the museum’s website. Under the heading “Sammlung online” / “Online collection” user can access database containing a total of
more than 4000 paintings, sculptures, as well as new media, ranging from the Late Middle Ages through the 21st century. Can be searched by keyword, period, or artist. In German.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting
Leonardo da Vinci and His Treatise on Painting is a digital archive dedicated to the Treatise on Painting, the pivotal text for disseminating Leonardo’s art theory in Renaissance and Baroque Europe. Rather than focusing on Leonardo’s original manuscripts, which remained largely unavailable until the early nineteenth century, the digital archive focuses on the Treatise on Painting, the only text by Leonardo that circulated widely in Renaissance and Baroque Europe.
In collaboration with institutional partners and private collectors from across the globe, the digital archive gathers for the first time, in a single place, critical resource materials on the legacy and reception of Leonardo’s art theory.
These materials include over forty manuscript copies of the Treatise on Painting, dating from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, as well as early printed editions of Leonardo’s Treatise on Painting in Italian (1651), French (1651), and English (1721). The digital archive anticipates expanding its coverage of materials as new manuscripts and printed editions of the Treatise on Painting become available for inclusion.
The digital archive makes it possible to analyze the text and images of these materials systematically, comprehensively, and comparatively.
The project Leonardo da Vinci and his Treatise on Painting documents the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) on the science of art. It concentrates on the Treatise on Painting, a disorganized, fragmented, and misleading text that was compiled by Francesco Melzi, one of Leonardo’s pupils, around 1540 but that was regarded as a Leonardo original for centuries. The Treatise on Painting circulated widely. Artists, scientists, and scholars including Nicholas Poussin and Galileo Galilei, read it avidly as an authoritative record of Leonardo’s thoughts. In the 19th century, when the artist’s original notes became available, scholars realized that the text poorly reflected Leonardo’s sophisticated ideas. This project unearths and examines the inaccurate but highly influential interpretation of Leonardo’s legacy transmitted in the Treatise on Painting. The digital platform gathers restricted visual and verbal materials of the Treatise on Painting from around the globe. Its analytical and comparative functions make it possible to demonstrate breakdowns and misinterpretations of Leonardo’s legacy.
Mapping Titian
Mapping Titian is a digital resource that allows users to visualize one of the most fundamental concerns of the discipline of art history: the relationship between an artwork and its changing historical context. Focusing on the paintings executed by the Venetian Renaissance artist Titian (ca. 1488–1576), this site offers a searchable provenance index of his attributed pictures and allows users to create customizable collections of paintings and customizable maps that show the movement of the pictures over time and space. Mapping Titian has been generously funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation through a digital art-history grant to Boston University.
Mapping Titian contains the most up-to-date information available from print publications and from museum websites for the provenance of the paintings. The sources for each work’s provenance are cited each time the picture changes ownership and/or location. A references page includes a complete bibliographic entry for these sources. Users are encouraged to share new information or to offer corrections to the current database. As of now, the site has only paintings attributed to Titian and, because of attribution questions, does not yet include drawings by the artist. Information is still being entered and refined, and the site should be fully developed by September 2014.
Titian’s paintings have proven to be an especially rich microcosm of possible directions for the future project, Mapping Artworks, of which this current site would be one part. The application would provide a template for other scholars and educators to map other groups of objects, whether by artist, medium, or another criterion. Future phases of this project will include additional ways beyond geographic maps to visualize these “lives,” including nongeographic networks and three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of important collecting spaces in history.
Questions may be directed to Jodi Cranston, professor of Renaissance art at Boston University.
Mediateca di Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Digital archive relating to Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence
Medici Archive Project (MAP)
Searchable database of sources from Medici Granducal Archive, 1537-1743
miniaturaitaliana.com
Website dedicated to Italian manuscript illumination and antique books, curated by Dr. Anna Melograni.
Online Catasto of 1427 (Florence)
Searchable database of tax information for the city of Florence in 1427-29 (c. 10,000 records)
Online Gazetteer of Sixteenth-Century Florence
Database of ca. 750 items that can be located on the Buonsignori map of 1584/94
Online Tratte of Office Holders 1282-1532
Searchable database of c. 165,000 records about office holders of the Florentine Republic
On View in Italy
An online list compiled by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali of current exhibitions in Italy, organized by province. Includes an archive of past exhibitions as well.
Polo Museale Fiorentino
Information on museums, exhibitions, and digital archives of museum collections in Florence
Southern Italy XVI-XVII on the web
A web resource to collect art historical data on southern italian painting between XVI and XVII centuries. Database on paintings, their iconography, and their preservation status.
Storia di Firenze
An interdisciplinary initiative of the University of Florence, the History of Florence Portal offers a rich array of textual and visual material, including the theme of the month, histories of one day, images, and more.
Valente Italian Library
The Valente Italian Library at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, boasts the largest collection of books in the United States devoted specifically to the study of Italian history and culture. During 2012-2013 substantial donations of books were received from the estates of historians A. William Salamone and Patricia H. Labalme. Past donors of significant numbers of books in the field of Italian history have included Gene Brucker, Sebastian de Grazia, Donald R. Kelley, Benjamin Kohl, and Paul Grendler. All donations are tax-deductible at fair market value. The Valente Library collects books, documents and artifacts in all areas of Italian and Italian American culture. Gifts from libraries that are downsizing are welcome. All books receive bookplates stating the name of the donor. For further information, please contact Bill Connell.
Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca
Italian Dictionary especially useful for obsolete and/or archaic terms
Your Paintings: Online repository of paintings in the UK
Your Paintings is a joint initiative between the BBC, the Public Catalogue Foundation (a not-for-profit), and over 3,000 participating collections from across the United Kingdom. Resulting from the PCF’s ten-year project to digitize the UK’s entire national collection of oil paintings, Your Paintings allows users to see 80% of these paintings that are typically in storage. The vast majority had not been photographed before this project. These artworks are now free to view on the BBC’s website.
For more on the project, view the three-minute film produced by the BBC.
Your Paintings is the only website anywhere in the world illustrating a nation’s entire painting collection. There are over 210,000 oil paintings in the UK’s national collection. These publicly owned oil paintings are held in institutions ranging from museums large and small to universities, town halls, hospitals, and even fire stations. In total there are works by 36,000 artists on the site ranging from the world famous to the completely obscure. Your Paintings provides a major source of organized material for research into art history, British and international history, genealogy, and topography.
Back to Research & Resources page