ARTES Database
The collections
ARTES (Archive and Repository of Texts and Statutes) is designed as a working and research tool to delve deeper into how philosophy was taught and learned in the Italian universities of the Regnum Italiae. The database provides detailed information about the written works employed in the academic context, as well as on the masters who taught philosophy in the studia and contributed, with their travels, to a vital circulation of ideas and theories across the Italian peninsula. To navigate the intricate web of relationships between masters, their written works, and the official academic statutes, ARTES is structured into four interconnected collections (Magistri, Opera, Codices, Statuta), each dedicated to a specific type of content, plus a fifth collection (Textus) which offers transcriptions of primary sources.
Magistri
In travelling throughout the Italian peninsula, masters contributed in the spread of new ideas and theories, as well as innovative philosophical perspectives. In the Magistri collection you will find a variety of information regarding masters, their philosophical production, and their relationship with other masters.
All the masters are filed by the Latin version of their names and each record contains information on their period of activity and the locations in which they operated, in addition to a brief summary of their life, a list of their attributed works, and an outline of their relationships with other intellectuals.
By applying the Discipline filter, you can choose to visualise the masters’ records according to the subject they were tasked to teach at the studia.
Opera
The didactic texts collected in Opera are a core part of ARTES, offering precious insights on the manifold approaches to philosophical education in the Italian academic system. This section gathers indispensable data on written texts adopted in the philosophical curricula, specifying their nature (e.g., sermons, questions, commentaries), their approximate chronology, and their connections with other works.
In particular, for each opus you will find information on its author, its date and place of composition, the transcription of its incipit and explicit, and whether it is part of a larger collection, as in the case of quaestiones quodlibetales or quaestiones related to a larger commentary.
You can refine your search by using two dedicated filters: the Typology filter allows you to select one or more specific genre of texts, while the Topic filter offers a selection of keywords pertaining to the content of each work.
Codices
In this section you will have access to the main information regarding those manuscripts that contain written works aimed at teaching philosophy in an academic setting.
For each codex you will find a physical description, chronological periodisation, and a list of the writings it includes.
The library or archive where the codex can be consulted can be easily selected via the Institution filter.
Statuta
The Statuta collection gathers those official academic documents that stated how philosophy was supposed to be taught in the late medieval Italian studia.
Each record of this section is dedicated to a particular statutum, providing some essential information (such as date, place, institution who ratified it) along with the index of its rubrics and a list of mentioned authors and works.
Textus
This section provides you with transcriptions of both didactic works and academic statutes, which are arranged by rubricae.
The filter Text typology allows you to select the type of written source you wish to explore, to promote a more precise research.
Moreover, by using the search bar while selecting the Textus section, you will be able to search for specific terms and expressions directly from the transcriptions of primary sources.
Functionalities and usage
ARTES is designed to help you consult a wide range of different textual material – going from a master’s biography to the transcription of a statute’s rubrica – through a combined use of fixed filters and a search box to type your query. To improve your browsing experience, we strongly encourage you to make use of the following functionalities.
ARTES allows you to focus your search on a specific type of content by selecting one or more of the main categories of our database.
You can choose between five collections:
- Magistri, dedicated to the masters;
- Opera, which gathers the philosophical works used in teaching philosophy;
- Codices, where manuscripts are described;
- Statuta, pertaining the official documents regulating academic teaching;
- Textus, containing the transcriptions of both didactic texts and statutes.
In addition to the main filter by collection, there are seven additional filters to help you find what you’re looking for.
- Places: select one or more places to find out who taught in a specific location or which texts were written there. This filter applies to all the collections except for Codices and Textus.
- Typologies: filter your results by selecting one or more types of didactic works, such as sermons, commentaries, questions, etc. This filter applies only to the Opera collection and the typologies are expressed in Latin.
- Disciplines: select one or more of the official disciplines covered by the Italian academic system to find the masters who taught them. This filter applies only to the Magistri collection and the disciplines are written in English.
- Topics: pick one or more topics to select the didactic works which addressed those topics. This filter applies only to the Opera collection. The keywords are written generally in English, except for some specific expressions (e.g., visio, intellectus) which have been maintained in Latin.
- Institutions: narrow down the amount of manuscripts displayed based on the library or archive they are stored or see which studia or faculty adopted a specific statute. This filter applies only to the Codices and Statuta collections.
- Text Typologies: choose which type of transcription (either opera or rubricae) is displayed. This filter applies only to the Textus collection.
- Dates: filter your results by selecting your time span of preference. This filter applies to all collections except for Textus.
Besides these search filters, you can also use the search box to type a specific query. Write the terms or expressions you’re looking for and you’ll be redirected to the most corresponding results; you can also make your query more precise by using search operators such as “and”, “or”, and “not”.
The “and”, “or” and “not” operators help you narrow or broaden your search according to your needs:
- The AND keyword: use this to find results that contain all of your specified keywords. For example, “voluntas AND intellectus” will return results that include both “voluntas” and “intellectus”.
- The OR keyword: use this to find results that contain either of your keywords. For example, “voluntas OR intellectus” will return results that include either “voluntas” or “intellectus”.
- The NOT keyword: use this to find results that include the first keyword but exclude the second. For example, “voluntas NOT intellectus” will return results that include “voluntas” but do not include “intellectus”.
To improve your search, you can easily arrange your results according to your needs. You can sort them in a chronological or alphabetical order. If you do not use this tool, the results will be shown based on their entry date.