We have a growing collection of digitized books, comprising more than 1.400 titles. We digitize mostly rare books, but also modern specimens. The total number of scans as of 2020 is nearly 350.000. A distinguishing feature is that all volumes can be integrated into digital platforms using the IIIF API. The digitized series are listed below.
For some time now we are digitizing the guide books of Rome from 1475 to 1950 (shelf numbers beginning witg Dg). As for illustrations, these are sometimes repetitive or cursory. A lot of generally unknown and sometimes obscure place names. Some volumes are hard to access to OCR (type and paper quality).
Accessible singularly as IIIF Manifest. For the data alone, please check the databases (below).
We are starting to digitize the travel literature of Italy from 1550 up until 1930 (shelf numbers beginnning with Fa). Most volumes are sparsely illustrated, with a lot of modern (recognizable) place names. Theya are relatively accessible to OCR. Here's the numbers:
The volumes are accessible singularly or as a collection (IIIF Manifest). Again, for the data alone check the databases (below).
Newly acquired rare books -- which for the most part are not yet digitized -- are listed here. This is a good starting point if you want to keep yourself informed of our ongoing rare book acquisitions in the fields of guide books (Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany) and 20th century colonialism.
We have various SQLite databases we maintain mainly for internal production.
An SQLite with the complete library holdings - not only digitized items - as of 2020-12 with the most important metadata including to 3 keywords per topic (person, corporation, place, subject) and their relevant GND identifications. With a bit of ingenuity the relevant keywords can be georeferenced and mapped onto Italy (using, eg, the ISTAT data, which is included in the package).
An SQLite with the rara holdings only - not only digitized items - as of 2020-12 with the most important metadata (no keywords). Added are information about provenance.
Complete database for all Rara volumes documenting status reports and eventual interventions during the restoration project 2017-2020. The difficutly in assessing the meaning of all this information lies in the inherently complex description. Language: Italian.
We have an SQLite with crude OCR results (tesseract) for every digitized book (travel reports, guide books, etc. except Echaurren). The table comprises only filename/shelf, line and OCR-string.
SQLite database of the digitiez Pablo Echaurren collection (vd. infra) with short metadata (author, title, year, publisher, editor &c.) and indices e.g. for keypersons.
We also have - as a left-over from the LVPa project - nearly 800 georeferenced toponyms of the city of Rome. These cover the antique and the modern city. Columns are name and latlon for the simple toponyms plus the old LVPA data with references. Sorry, points only - no vector so far.
In 1924 Julius von Schlosser published his »Die Kunstliteratur«, a collections of primary sources for the history of art. Of the ca. 1400 cited titles, most are owned by our library and have been digitized. The transcription of the »Die Kunstliteratur« with direct links to all digitized sources is here.
Ludwig Schudt's »Le Guide di Roma«, published in 1930, lists nearly all known guide books of Rome. The publication has been transcribed and all sources cited by him have been linked to digitized specimen - most of them from our own extensive collection.
Finally, there's a new project coming about the artistic treasures of the town of L'Aquila, developed in partnership with the university of l'Aquila. The transcription of Leosini's »Monumenti storici artistici della citta di Aquila« from 1848 will be accompanied by an exhaustive comment and its cited monuments located on a interactive map. The website is only a mock-up.
This archive comprehends more than 1.000 pieces of pamphlets, sketches, photographies and printed materiel from the collection of Pablo Echaurren, mostly from 1965-1979. A special website is being prepared. An announcement will be made in spring 2021. For the data, vd. supra.
We have collected some early printed and manuscript texts about the theory of perspective, with relevant modern documentation. Originally this was intended as a place for collaborative editing (using the annotate.it toolkit). The toolkit is no more, but the documents are still open.
The data here exposed come from the -- now defunct -- LVPA Project by Andreas Thielemann. Exemplary guide books of Rome were manually indexed and all better known place names registered. The result was a database covering the most famous place marks of Rome -- more than 1.100 toponyms -- with more than 15.000 direct links into our digitized volumes.
The data here comes from our bibliographic data stored in the OPAC - or better, the catalogue of our consortium. Specific keywords have been extracted - municipalities in Italy and some selected places in Rome - and mapped onto a map of Italy.
A sketchbook containing original watercolours held by the library has been digitized and its panoramic views (mostly of the Naples bay area) georeferenced. The result has been visualized using the Mapbox Storyboard template and as traditional Pop-Up. Both solutions have been overlayed onto a 3D terrain model. A third way to deal with the same task of adding geo informations, but also annotations done by researchers has been done in an enhanced IIIF-manifest. Simply open a standard Mirador3 viewer (e.g. this ) and load the Manifest file from here .
We've georeferenced some of the (better) maps of Rome, Latium and the Abruzzi from the library material. The results are quite nice, even more when overlayed on top of modern maps. They are collected here:
Digitizations of surfaces (paintings, leather bindings, et al.) proved to be very interesting. A deeper look at the surface allows for better understanding of the production technique, of restorations and environmental damage. Some examples are collected here:
Digitizations of watermarks proved to be a technical challenge. Initially we thought it would be possible to eliminate the surface print (ink) using a filter, but not only the watermark is visible in a transparency scan but the paper structure (pulp) also. Some examples are collected here:
3D scans of our rare book collection proved to be a good approach to present the materiality of our objects. A good example is the 1493 german edition of Hartmann Schedel's »Buch der Chroniken«. We've also done some digitizations of frescoes from rock sanctuaries in the Abruzzi region, too (»Santa Maria dell Ritornata« near Civita d'Antino). All digitizations have been executed using photogrammetry.
All of our digitized volumes are accessible using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting . The Getty is using this API to include our collection into its Research Portal . The use of our API is free.
All of our digitized volumes are accessible using the International Image Interoperability Framework . This allows harvesting of volumes and -- even more importantly -- single scans bypassing traditional HTML interfaces. The use of the IIIF API eliminates the cumbersome download process and facilitates distributed research.
All of our digitized volumes are accessible using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting . The Getty is using this API to include our collection into its Research Portal . The use of our API is free.
All digitized works are released — if not explicitely stated otherwise — under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence of Creative Commons.
You are free to:
Under the following terms:
Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
Even if you transform or build upon the scans, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
Our mail address is:
Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute for Art History
Digitization
Via Gregoriana, 28
I-00187 Rome
You'll find more information on our website.
For general questions please contact PD Dr. Golo Maurer , for technical inquiries please contact Dr. Klaus E. Werner .