Introduction
The Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome is a Max Planck Institute dedicated to the mission of conducting innovative foundational research in the field of Art History. Two Research Departments and two Max Planck Research Groups, supported by the Scientific Services and the Administration, focus on specific research questions about art and architecture, both Italian and international, from the Middle Ages to the present. The Institute supports a great number of young researchers, who as Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows work on their own projects while contributing to the Institute’s Research Priorities. Profiting from a highly stimulating local and international context, this lively scientific community shares the goal of constantly renewing and deepening our knowledge of visual culture.
The Importance of Reporting - in a New Format
Until now, the Bibliotheca Hertziana has presented its Report in hard-copy, paper form, but now a new approach is being taken: a new digital format that makes the Report easier to use and consult. Moreover, its preparation has produced synergies across the Institute that will make day-to-day work easier. Being able to produce the Report in-house without external graphic designers has also made the process more autonomous and saved costs. In the future, the data collected will be harvested and processed to better understand and monitor the Institute’s progress.
Foundational Research
Tanja Michalsky's Department deals with historical spaces, whether in their concrete form or in the various media of their representation - from maps and cityscapes to films and digital reconstructions. The focus on Naples and Southern Italy has proven highly fruitful. Individual and collective work on methods and objects complement each other in the various research formats and groups. The focus is on methodological questions of cartography, whose susceptibility to change in the digital realm (shifting borders, relabelling, etc.) is particularly relevant at the moment, as well as on the specific conditions of cinematic spaces.
Tristan Weddigen’s Department has experimented with the development of new integrated research environments that combine the digitization of art historical documents, their open-access publication in semantic databases, the offer of fellowships dedicated to their study, and the possibility of publishing the results that ideally flow back into the information life cycle. In response to recent political, societal, and technological shifts, critical approaches to fascism, colonialism, methodology, and Artificial Intelligence have gained momentum.
What role did images play in early modern science? The Max Planck Research Group seeking to answer this question has now shifted its focus towards an examination of practices of drawing as tools for scientific observation – highlighting both makers and processes. The group’s work has been disseminated through yearly international conferences and various outputs, including both a physical exhibition catalogue and an online exhibition.
Conservation is a central issue today, linked to climate change, conflict, and emerging technologies. The Lise Meitner Group is exploring the material instability of objects through issues of displacement, damage, and destruction. They have so far launched three annual research initiatives – Waste, Loot, and Rework – and a book series, DIS/APPEARANCE, modeling innovative approaches to the study of material vulnerability across media.
Senior Scholar Susanne Kubersky-Piredda’s research focuses on dynamics of cohabitation, interaction, public display, and self-representation among foreigners in shared urban spaces, such as Rome’s Via Giulia and Naples’s port area. Her most recent book on Santa Maria dell’Anima highlights the role of material culture as a means of expressing manifold and constantly shifting identities within the German community of early modern Rome.
AI and Art History - A New Research Group
Dr. Leonardo Impett’s Machine Visual Culture Max Planck Research Group examines the interplay between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and visual culture, thereby asking how AI is shaped by – and shapes – the history of seeing. The group investigates the ‘ways of seeing’ distinctive to AI, and develops AI techniques to analyse the history of art at new scales. By exploring AI both as a tool for art historical research and as a cultural form in its own right, the group builds new interdisciplinary bridges between the emerging fields of Digital Art History and Critical AI Studies, with important implications for contemporary visual culture and society more broadly.
A Scientific Community of Fellows
The intellectual development of junior scholars belongs to the core of the Institute’s mission. A range of formats have been devised for Fellows to share their works-in-progress, ranging from departmental meetings through Institute-wide Shoptalks to the recently inaugurated New Fellows’ Presentations. Fellows are also encouraged to develop their research collaboratively through Field Seminars led by our Wittkower and Krautheimer Fellows and during the biennial Field School, which brings together graduate students from the Institute and from universities across the globe. Self-organized forums for Fellows are similarly integral to the Institute’s culture, with the so-called “Labor” (shortened from “Laboratory”) serving as the Fellows’ regular internal meeting and as the venue in which they can test their ideas. Holistically taking account of the needs of our Fellows as they embark on their academic careers, the Scientific Assistants together with the Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Representatives also regularly host career advancement and soft-skill workshops.
DH Lab: Laborat!
Placing itself at the crossroads between the Research Departments, the Library, and the Photographic Collection, the DH Lab has furthered its mission of promoting the adoption of Open Science practices in the projects of these units. The colossal task of unifying data representations has resulted in an initial FAIR data infrastructure, which encompasses legacy projects and powers novel data-intensive projects, such as the Mauro Staccioli archive and the virtual exhibition that accompanies it. Vertical and longitudinal developments are underway in the directions of expanding existing datasets, integrating more data from each unit, and scaling the infrastructure to stabilize the publication of open research data. The digital publishing infrastructure, developed in part by a DFG grant, ensures the continued dissemination of the Institute’s research products, particularly papers and critical editions, through open access.
Opening Access to Science
The Library has been committed to its post-digital initiative of integrating diverse media for a decade. In addition to the main task of remaining the world’s most comprehensive library in the field of Italian art history, great efforts have been made to further expand and diversify the collection of rare books and to align it with new research horizons. Honoring the materiality of the book as an object and working with state-of-the-art forms of digitization represent integral components of this new knowledge initiative.
The Photographic Collection houses the world’s largest archive on the art of drawing, significantly expanded through key donations. These holdings underscore the foundational role of drawing in artistic creation and serve as a vital resource for research. The entire collection of approximately 850,000 photographic prints has recently been fully digitized and, having also been enriched with new data, is now accessible through the online catalog and a newly developed tool to further scholarly inquiry.
Equal Opportunities, More Diversity
The BHMPI aims to increase female scientific staff representation, as well as to build a more diverse workforce in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, culture, social background, disability, and sexual orientation. Analysis revealed gender disparities: while female academics make up 64% of the academic staff, men show higher scientific output and conference attendance, while speaker invitations reflect staff gender ratios (66% women vs 34% men for seminars, and 55% women against 45% men when it comes to conferences). To address these and other issues, Gender Equality Officers introduced bi-monthly lunches fostering discussion and awareness. By incorporating questions derived from gender, queer, feminist, and disability studies into research projects, we bridge research perspectives and institutional practice.
Collaboration, Global and Local
The Institute’s exchange with other research institutions has been intensified in recent years. There are traditionally close links with institutions in Italy such as the KHI in Florence, the DAI and DHI in Rome, as well as the museums and universities in Naples and Rome. At present there are more than 35 international collaborations throughout Europe and also with institutes in the Americas, including the Getty and the Research Council of Canada. Some fellowships are awarded in conjunction with the Warburg Institute in London, the University of St. Andrews, and the DFK in Paris. Scientists affected by the war on Ukraine have been supported since 2020.
Public Relations in the Age of Social Media
In recent years the Institute has invested in a series of documentary videos titled Hertziana Insights. This new format gives access to the Institute’s research topics and presents research questions, methodologies, and findings in formats that both differ from and also complement classic scholarly publications. The documentaries have a long shelf life and can be used in different contexts. After a period of observation and deliberation, the Institute has recently suspended its communications on the X/Twitter channel. The Institute is monitoring developments and trends on other social media platforms.
Publishing Research in Art History
The Publications, Public Relations, and Reporting Services (PPRR) offers tailored solutions for the different stakeholders of the Institute. In the reporting period, PPRR successfully supported an application to the Italian Ministry of Culture, which funded a project dedicated to Italian women artists in the 1970s. In 2022 the Hertziana Studies in Art History, the Institute’s first born-digital publication series, was inaugurated. It provides an excellent environment for publishing the Institute’s scholarship as it realizes the full potential of the native digital format, including web links, semantic annotations, interactive content, and Linked-Open-Data. This development has led to a diversification of the options available to scholars. For some projects, a digital open-access publication strategy is preferable, while for others the physical qualities of a printed publication retains long-standing advantages.
How to Support Science, Day in, Day out
The situation of a Max Planck Institute abroad entails the challenge of meeting the Max Planck Society’s statutory and funding requirements while also observing Italian legal and administrative regulations (in addition to German ones). During her 21 years with the Institute, the outgoing Administrative Director, Brigitte Secchi, has been constantly dealing with highly complex tax and status issues. A solution is now in sight and involves registering the Institute with the Italian authorities, which has been discussed with the General Administration and external advisors. So far, the Administration’s team has been able to meet the challenges of constantly increasing volume and complexity by using information technologies to process operational tasks. Such changes demand a great deal of flexibility and motivation from the Administration’s seven staff members.
Gallery, Disco, Ruin: Extending the Hertziana
The acute lack of space, which especially impacts the Library, has long cast a shadow over the Institute. After years of searching, a former art gallery at Via Gregoriana 9, which then served as a disco before being abandoned, was acquired by the Foundation Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe in 2018. This opened the unique opportunity to secure 500 square metres for the expansion of the Institute in a highly attractive setting. As all the necessary administrative steps have been taken, the way is clear for the realization of the project with the support of the Max Planck Förderstiftung. Construction work is planned to start soon. The Institute is looking forward to moving its Special Collections and DH Lab into the new location in the next few years.