This proposal builds upon the foundations placed by the project supported under the Sapienza Awards Scheme, 2015 Exercise, aka TOTUS MUNDUS Project (www.totusmundus.it).
The main scope of the previous project was to digitalize the annotated edition of the World Atlas, Kunyou quantu (1602), by Matteo Ricci, SI as well as to making available a computational lexicon containing geographical lexemes, astronomical and other scientific lexemes, and their corresponding Chinese graphs.
This constitutes the foundation upon which we intend to (re)construct the intellectual world of XVII century Jesuit missionaries who, having been sent to far-off lands, saw map-making as a means to evangelise. By drawing boundaries and mapping spaces, Jesuits made foreign lands known to Europe and determined uncounters between mutually unknown countries.
Although the scope of the previous project was well defined, the open access data base was created by taking into account its future development to include other repositories, the ultimate purpose being a complete digitalization of Jesuit cartography.
The present proposal is a step forward in this direction, whose target is to further explore Jesuit missionary cartography by including maps produced by: 1.Ricci (already tackled in the previous project), Aleni, Sambiasi and Korean cartography; 2. Jesuit Cartography for the Iberian Colonial Empires: the contribution of G. Furlong Cardif.
The main task of this project is the creation of a digital library, an open access repository of integrated materials and a useful tool for scholars, students and citizens.
An important outcome of the project will be the release of an open source software platform for the organic exploration of cultural heritage data, of which the Totus Mundus project was the first instance. The platform, which will take the form of a digital library, will integrate data coming from related initiatives, such as the Clavius on the Web project implemented by IIT and ILC of CNR (http://claviusontheweb.it/), and will make it possible for students and scholars to cross the boundaries between specific collections, archives and studies. This will pave the way for the creation of an innovative space for the academic and education communities, in which users could explore different domains and sources in an organic and accurate fashion. The new partner in this project, Net7 has been actively involved in European projects in the field of digital humanities, namely: DM2E (http://www.netseven.it/portfolio/dm2e/); Discovery (http://www.netseven.it/portfolio/discovery/), projects aimed at developping a consortium of Semantic Digital Libraries in the field of the humanities. Another important achievement of Net7 is Agora (http://www.netseven.it/portfolio/agora/), aimed at the development of a consortium of Open Access Digital Libraries in the field of European philosophy. Net7 is also engaged, for UNESCO, on the design of the new UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger website, and for the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, on the ERC AdG 2011 Looking at Words Through Images, coordinated by Prof. Lina Bolzoni.
If the project is supported, Net7's professional expertise will go a long way towards assuring that the objectives set out in this proposal are achieved within the project time frame.
Concerning the termino-ontological resource, two major innovations are expected: i) an extension of the lemon model for the management of attestations will be developed and shared: as a matter of fact, and to the best of our knowledge, no available lexical model compliant with the Semantic Web includes mechanisms to refer lexemes to textual resources; ii) no Chinese computational lexica have been developed yet by using the 'lemon model'.
The data (i.e. digitized maps, the termino-ontological resource, the texts) and the software tools will be considered for inclusion withinthe European research infrastructures for digital humanities and cultural heritage like DARIAH and CLARIN, Europeana (via the national aggregator Cultura italia) and the EOSC standards on FAIR data and interoperability.
These operations will allow users to share the findings of the project, to enhance research and collaboration in this field, in line with the policy of EU research programmes.