EPIHUM, a Database for Renaissance Epigraphy from Portugal and Spain

Abstract

This chapter introduces the project ‘Escritura expuesta y poder en España (siglos XVI-XVII): catálogo epigráfico online’ (EPIHUM Project), the first epigraphic database of inscriptions from Portugal and Spain in the Renaissance (15th and 16th centuries), which gathers together inscriptions in any language of the Iberian Peninsula during that time (Latin, Spanish and Portuguese). To date, the study of inscriptions of this period has been very limited, and has usually been embedded in studies of architecture or sculpture of these centuries. There is no detailed study of the period’s inscriptions whether from Spain or from Portugal, even though both countries have a long-standing tradition in the study of epigraphy of ancient and medieval times. The EPIHUM database will be multi-platform, multi-user, extensible and with expanded description capabilities, as well as compatible with the standards of the semantic web in RDF format, allowing file sharing in EpiDoc and TEI XML formats. The new system for cataloguing, recording and managing epigraphic inscriptions will be the only one of its kind, not just because of the information it will contain (unpublished inscriptions of the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe), but also due to its technological advances in information processing and retrieval techniques.