15cBOOKTRADE: The visualization of the circulation of books over time and space and image-searching tool: how we got there

Cristina Dondi and Matilde Malaspina of the 15C BOOKTRADE project,
give a talk for the 2017 DHOXSS. Cristina will present 15cV, a
powerful tool for the visualization of the movement of
fifteenth-century printed books, from the time and place where they
were printed to where they are today, via the many places and
people who distributed, purchased, owned, and annotated them during
the intervening 500-year period. This tool enables unanswered
historical queries on the impact of printing on early modern
society to be addressed for the first time. Cristina will
illustrate how the project is making its visualization possible,
and outlines how the project, one of the largest collaborative
enterprises in the humanities, was set up and continues to grow.
Matilde will present the 15cBOOKTRADE project, a collaboration with
the Visual Geometry Group (Department of Engineering Science,
University of Oxford). This project is testing the application of a
series of digital cataloguing and searching methods on
fifteenth-century printed images. The work is based on the
integrated application of instance-based (i.e. image) and
class-based (i.e. text) retrieval. The objective of the
collaboration is the creation of a new tool capable of
systematically tracking and investigating the production, use,
circulation, and copy of woodblocks, iconographic subjects,
artistic styles, etc. within fifteenth-century printed illustrated
editions.