Executive Summary of the Project |
The project will address the study of the humanistic inscriptions on the Iberian peninsula and their evolution through the main epigraphic programs developed in Spain and Portugal during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the context of the different political uses of apparatus scripts made by the monarchies that ruled in both countries and the nobility and clergy as well. The study of inscriptions of this period has been, to date, very limited, and has been usually embedded in studies of architecture or sculpture of these centuries. There is no detailed study of the inscriptions of this period both in Spain or Portugal, although both countries have a long tradition in the study of epigraphy of ancient and medieval times. The introduction of humanistic script on the Iberian Peninsula takes place in the late fifteenth century and the first epigraphic programs which follow the models of the Italian Renaissance will be developed especially in the first half of the sixteenth century. Most of these inscriptions have been insufficiently studied and several of them, quoted in various works of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, have been cited by modern historiography with errors and gaps, without having undergone a detailed epigraphic study.
As a prelude to the diachronic and multidisciplinary study of the epigraphic testimonies from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the Spanish kingdoms that we aim, an online database that will collect all entries compiled and studied by the research team will be built. This database will be the first of its kind in Europe and will be addressed from the experience gained by the research team in the field of editing epigraphic catalogs as well as in the use of Information Technologies and Documentation applied to epigraphic research. The database of Hispanic epigraphy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will be made from the experience of national projects that, since the nineties of the last century, have taken place in our neighboring countries. Unlike other databases, the new information system will be multi-platform, multi-user, extensible, and with expanded description capabilities, compatible with the standards of the Semantic Web in RDF format, allowing file sharing in EpiDoc and TEI -XML formats, easing their aggregation in Europeana. The new cataloguing, recording and management system of epigraphic inscriptions will be unique in its kind not only because of the information it will contain (unpublished inscriptions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe), but by the technological advances regarding techniques for processing and retrieval of information and Linked Data, not yet implemented in analog systems in Spain and Portugal.
The international interest in the project justifies the holding of an international conference under the project, to be held in its last year in order to present the main achievements to the international scientific community and to establish partnerships with researchers from some neighboring countries that in the medium term, allow to profit the experience gained in this project in the preparation of a wider European project to expand the territory to study to other countries.
As a prelude to the diachronic and multidisciplinary study of the epigraphic testimonies from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the Spanish kingdoms that we aim, an online database that will collect all entries compiled and studied by the research team will be built. This database will be the first of its kind in Europe and will be addressed from the experience gained by the research team in the field of editing epigraphic catalogs as well as in the use of Information Technologies and Documentation applied to epigraphic research. The database of Hispanic epigraphy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will be made from the experience of national projects that, since the nineties of the last century, have taken place in our neighboring countries. Unlike other databases, the new information system will be multi-platform, multi-user, extensible, and with expanded description capabilities, compatible with the standards of the Semantic Web in RDF format, allowing file sharing in EpiDoc and TEI -XML formats, easing their aggregation in Europeana. The new cataloguing, recording and management system of epigraphic inscriptions will be unique in its kind not only because of the information it will contain (unpublished inscriptions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe), but by the technological advances regarding techniques for processing and retrieval of information and Linked Data, not yet implemented in analog systems in Spain and Portugal.
The international interest in the project justifies the holding of an international conference under the project, to be held in its last year in order to present the main achievements to the international scientific community and to establish partnerships with researchers from some neighboring countries that in the medium term, allow to profit the experience gained in this project in the preparation of a wider European project to expand the territory to study to other countries.