Data­base

Contents

Origi­nally, the Census aimed to docu­ment the ancient works of art and archi­tec­ture that were known in the “Renais­sance”, up to around 1520, and to record their state of preser­va­tion at that time. Over the course of the decades, however, the scope of the project has expanded consider­ably. Today, the data­base prima­rily brings toge­ther data on the recep­tion of anti­quity in Europe, espe­ci­ally in Italy, between 1400 and 1600. In addi­tion, it also includes a signi­fi­cant number of sources from the eigh­te­enth century, among them the Topham Albums compiled in the early eigh­te­enth century, as well as mate­rials from the time of Johann Joachim Winckel­mann, espe­ci­ally Wincklemann’s writings. 

The Census data­base is centered on ancient monu­ments and their post-antique trans­mis­sion. It records not only the ancient works of art and archi­tec­ture them­selves, but also the many traces of their percep­tion, appro­pria­tion, and inter­pre­ta­tion: drawings, prints, written sources, coll­ec­tion invent­ories, travel accounts, archival docu­ments, artists’ biogra­phies, and later lite­ra­ture in art history and clas­sical studies. The data­base thus makes visible which ancient works were known in the early modern period, where they were located, how they were described, drawn, coll­ected, restored, copied, or inter­preted, and which people, places, and events were connected with their trans­mis­sion.

A total of over 200,000 entries record monu­ments, visual and written sources, places, persons, dates, artistic styles, events, biblio­graphy and illus­tra­tions. The number of Antique Monu­ments is curr­ently over 10,000 and the Post­clas­sical Works number over 38,000.

The Data Model

The sche­matic repre­sen­ta­tion of the data struc­ture uses arrows to illus­trate the connec­tions between cate­go­ries of data.

The Census data­base consists of the two central object types Antique Monu­ments and Post­clas­sical Works, which are directly related to each other. The other object types provide supple­men­tary infor­ma­tion. Both main cate­go­ries are linked to indexes of places (Loca­tion), persons (Person), biblio­graphy (Biblio­graphy) and images (Image). The object type “Style” refers only to Antique Monu­ments. There are also links between the subca­te­go­ries, and each cate­gory can be sear­ched indi­vi­du­ally or in combination. 

Further Infor­ma­tion and Links

The Census data­base migrated to a new system in March 2023. Follow the links below to the data­base user guide and to find infor­ma­tion about how to set up a personal account. 

You will also find links below to infor­ma­tion about the semantic data models of the Census and about the SPARQL endpoint.