Data­base

Data­base Contents

The Census data­base connects antique monu­ments known during the Renais­sance (1400–1600) with the Renais­sance media which repre­sent or respond to them. The project has been prima­rily focused on cata­lo­guing which ancient monu­ments were known, and in what state of preser­va­tion, in the fifte­enth and sixte­enth centuries.

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.

Written sources include coll­ec­tion invent­ories, travel guides, archival docu­ments, and artists’ vitae. Visual sources in the Census prima­rily include drawings from sketch­books and albums, as well as single sheets and prints.

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 in the new database.

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