The project

In-Italja is a dynamic digital atlas dedicated to the history of Jews in Italy, focusing on the themes of mobility, interrelationships, economy and culture. The atlas brings together the results of three PRIN research projects hosted by Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Milan, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna and the University of Pisa.

  • Spatialising Jews and the Economy. Towards A Digital and Dynamic Atlas: People, Business, Artifacts in Global Italy (14th-20th centuries)
    PRIN 2022 EHLWYE CUP Master: G53D23000190006
  • Jewish and Christian Marriages. Rituals, Rights, Interrelations (15th-17th Centuries, Papal States)
    PRIN-PNRR 2022 9JXJE – CUP master J53D2301768 0001
  • Visualising Jewish Cultural Heritage. Toward a Digital and Dynamic Atlas: People, Artifacts, Books and Manuscripts in Global Italy (15th-20th centuries)
    PRIN 2022: Code 2022CZN8WB, CUP I53D23000100006

The PRIN (Research Projects of National Interest) programmes of the Directorate-General for Research of the Ministry of University and Research are intended to finance public research projects in order to promote the national research system and strengthen interactions between universities and research institutions in line with the objectives set out in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and encourage Italian participation in initiatives related to the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

Objective of the In-Italja atlas:

  • To make geolocated sources accessible and navigable
  • To enable the search and filtering of information.
  • To offer an intuitive and engaging experience
  • To encourage collaboration between researchers and users.
  • To present research and research results.

The initiative adopts an interdisciplinary and data-oriented approach, bringing together humanistic, digital and methodological skills. The sources produced and collected within the PRIN framework – including documentary, bibliographic and iconographic materials and structured data – are selected and described according to shared standards to ensure scientific consistency, quality and interoperability

The IN-ITALJA digital atlas is specifically designed for the cartographic representation and geolocation of sources, understood as evidence of the presence, circulation and mobility of goods, people, economic practices and cultural relations in space and time. Through the integration of geographical data and map visualization tools, the sources are transformed into spatially analysable elements, opening up new perspectives for studying the phenomena of exchange, transfer and interaction in Italy from the Middle Ages to the 1930s.

Through an interdisciplinary and data-driven approach, which integrates historical studies, social sciences, digital humanities and spatial humanities, the project pays particular attention to the principles of Open Science and FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), promoting the publication of sources as open and reusable resources within sustainable digital infrastructures. Through data catalogues and advanced query tools, the resources are accessible to both the scientific community and a wider audience, encouraging new forms of analysis, comparison and reuse of data.

The enhancement of the sources from the three PRIN projects is not limited to their digital preservation, but aims to generate new research trajectories, encouraging dialogue between disciplines, institutions and territories. In this sense, the project intends the In-Italja atlas as a shared space for querying and linking sources, to experiment with innovative models of humanistic research, capable of combining historical depth and digital methodologies, and to strengthen the role of sources as a shared knowledge infrastructure.

The map

OpenHistoricalMap is a charter project of OpenStreetMap USA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation, which aims to map changes in the natural and human geography of the world.

Navigation interface and search tools

The Atlas map is at the heart of navigation: each element displayed represents historical and geographical data relating to the mobility of people, documents, works of art, material assets or bibliographic sources. Data on mobility, from the 12th to the 20th century, of:

  • Bibliographic records
  • Persons
  • Works of art
  • Assets

Each entity represented on the map is linked to sources, described through structured metadata. The map is therefore not simply an illustrative aid, but a real research environment in which data can be queried. Users can perform a full-text search and filter the data displayed by selecting basic parameters such as the PRIN project, type of entity, and time interval. These filters allow users to progressively narrow down the field of observation and identify relevant spatial and temporal patterns.

Application integrations: LOD

The IN-ITALJA project uses Linked Open Data (LOD), which allows sources, places, people and events to be linked in a transparent and verifiable way, paving the way for richer, more interdisciplinary and methodologically sound analyses. Thanks to their open and interoperable nature, LOD makes historical data reusable, comparable and integrable with other knowledge bases, improving the quality and impact of research.

The Linked Open Data dataset of IN-ITALJA – Interrelations in Italian Jewry Atlas constitutes the semantic backbone of the project: it allows the complex network of historical, social, economic and cultural relations that have characterized the Jewish presence in Italy from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age to be represented in a fully interoperable format, but also allows manuscripts and works of art to be described. The use of shared ontologies and Semantic Web standards allows information from three PRIN projects and different disciplines to be integrated, enabling dynamic exploration of the connections between people, places, objects, events and mobility.

The adoption of LOD makes this information heritage open, reusable, interoperable and connectable to other external datasets, transforming the atlas into an advanced platform for historical research and digital humanities. The use of the IIIF protocol also allows high-resolution digital images from external sources to be viewed, annotated and compared, integrating them directly into the semantic system and expanding the potential for consultation and analysis of iconographic and documentary sources.

The entire LOD dataset can be consulted at: https://in-italja.org/data/

The sources

Archivio Comunale di Crema; Archivio della Comunità Israelitica di Verona; Archivio del Dicastero per la Dottrina della Fede; Archivio Storico del Comune di Asti; Archivio Storico del Comune di Caramagna; Archivio Storico del Comune di Cavallermaggiore; Archivio Storico del Comune di Chieri; Archivio Storico del Comune di Chivasso; Archivio Storico del Comune di Cuneo; Archivio Storico di Como; Archivio Storico di Cremona; Archivio Storico del Comune di Ivrea; Archivio Storico Comunale di Lodi; Archivio Storico del Comune di Moncalieri; Archivio di Stato di Como; Archivio Storico del Comune di Piasco; Archivio Storico Comunale di Piacenza; Archivio Storico del Comune di Pinerolo; Archivio Storico Comunale di Pavia; Archivio di Stato di Cremona; Archivio Storico del Comune di Racconigi; Archivio Storico del Comune di Saluzzo; Archivio Storico della Città di Savigliano; Archivio Storico del Comune di Torino; Archivio Storico del Comune di Vercelli; Archivio Storico di Vigevano; Archivio Storico del Comune di Vigone; Archivio di Stato di Milano; Archivio di Stato di Mantova; Archivio di Stato di Modena; Archivio di Stato di Pisa; Archivio di Stato di Pavia; Archivio di Stato di Ravenna; Archivio di Stato di Roma; Archivio di Stato di Torino; Archivio Segreto Vaticano; Archivio Trivulzio di Milano; Biblioteca Comunale di Vercelli; Biblioteca Statale di Cremona; Cartario Saviglianese; Hohenlohe-Zentralarchiv Neuenstein; Archivio di Stato di Lucca; Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede – Sant’Uffizio; Archivio Storico Intesa Sanpaolo; Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina; Archivio Storico della Comunità Ebraica di Roma; Austrian National Library; Archivio della Comunità Ebraica di Pisa; Archivio della Penitenzieria Apostolica; Archivio di Stato di Bologna; Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna; Archivio Centrale dello Stato; Archivio Storico Sapienza Università di Roma; Archivio Storico del Senato

Terms of use

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