Analytical and mathematical methods for revealing hidden details in ancient manuscripts and paintings: A review

In this work, a critical review of the current nondestructive probing and image analysis approaches is presented, to revealing otherwise invisible or hardly discernible details in manuscripts and paintings relevant to cultural heritage and archaeology. Multispectral imaging, X-ray fluorescence, Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and Thermography are considered, as techniques for acquiring images and spectral image sets; statistical methods for the analysis of these images are then discussed, including blind separation and false colour techniques. Several case studies are presented, with particular attention dedicated to the approaches that appear most promising for future applications. Some of the techniques described herein are likely to replace, in the near future, classical digital photography in the study of ancient manuscripts and paintings

The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives

Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts. EVA 2013 Florence

Important Information Technology topics are presented: multimedia systems, data-bases, protection of data, access to the content. Particular reference is reserved to digital images (2D, 3D) regarding Cultural Institutions (Museums, Libraries, Palace – Monuments, Archaeological Sites). The main parts of the Conference Proceedings regard: Strategic Issues, EC Projects and Related Networks & Initiatives, International Forum on “Culture & Technology”, 2D – 3D Technologies & Applications, Virtual Galleries – Museums and Related Initiatives, Access to the Culture Information. Three Workshops are related to: International Cooperation, Innovation and Enterprise, Creative Industries and Cultural Tourism

The quest for myriad strains

In the era in which the web is fully demonstrating its archival potential, more and more composers make use of sound, melody and computer library repositories. It is a clear trend in popular music, which is increasingly being extended also to ‘academic’ composition: today authors can access and contribute to a vast array of audio materials, of procedures and languages, where historicity and innovation coexist in an eternal present. At first glance it may seem a revolution. However, a closer look reveals ancient roots in the history of music that audio reproduction has made only more evident: the fixation of music on tape, at first, has led some composers (e.g. Bruno Maderna) to create sound libraries to be reused in different works, thus blurring the borders of the Opera; later on, the dematerialization and atomization of procedures in IT have pushed towards a philosophy of sharing (e.g. libraries for Computer Assisted Composition systems) – exalted today by the capillarity of the lightning-fast web distribution – raising deep questions about the concept of author itself. Moving further backwards, to the re-uses in Rossini and Mozart, or to the anonymous formulas in Gregorian chant, could we not find the recurrence of a quest for that world of «myriad strains that once shall sound», where the composer can stretch forth a hand for a musical idea, so wonderfully glimpsed by Busoni in his Sketch for a New Esthetic of Music?In un’epoca in cui il web sta dimostrando pienamente il suo potenziale archivistico, sempre più compositori fanno uso di archivi di suoni, melodie, librerie informatiche. Si tratta di una tendenza molto spiccata nella popular music, ma che si sta insinuando sempre più anche nelle roccaforti della composizione accademica. Oggi gli autori hanno accesso – e contribuiscono alla creazione – di una miriade di materiali audio, di procedure e linguaggi, dove storicità e innovazione coesistono in un eterno presente. A prima vista può sembrare una rivoluzione. Tuttavia, uno sguardo più attento rivela radici antiche nella storia della musica che la riproduzione dell’audio ha reso solo più evidenti: la possibilità di fissare la musica su nastro magnetico, in un primo momento, ha portato alcuni compositori (ad esempio Bruno Maderna) a creare librerie di suoni da riutilizzare in opere diverse, facendo sfuocare  così i confini dell'opera musicale;  in seguito, la smaterializzazione e l’atomizzazione delle procedure, tipiche delle tecnologie dell’informazione, hanno spinto verso una ‘filosofia della condivisione’ (ad esempio le librerie per i sistemi di Composizione Assistita all’Elaboratore), esaltata oggi dalla capillarità e dalla fulmineità della distribuzione via web, sollevando interrogativi profondi sul concetto stesso di autore. Ma muovendosi molto più indietro, verso le pratiche di riutilizzo in Rossini e Mozart, o verso le formule anonime del canto gregoriano, non si potrebbe scorgere la ricorrenza di una ricerca di un mondo di «milioni di melodie che un giorno risuoneranno», dove il compositore può tendere una mano per un’idea musicale, meravigliosamente intravista da Busoni nel suo Abbozzo per una nuova estetica della Musica

Feeding the Dragon: The Devourig Monster in Anglo-Saxon Eschatological Imagery

This essay deals with two intertwined eschatological motifs of the literary and iconographic culture of early medieval England: the devouring devil, especially in the guise of a dragon, and the mouth of hell, fashioned as the jowls of a zoomorphic monster, arguably a distinctively English adaptation of the anthropomorphic mouth of hell of classical descent. The following analysis will outline the intricate, creative interplay of crucial themes of Christian eschatology and demonology, on which the imagery of the demonic devouring dragon and the mouth of hell can be said to ultimately rely. In particular, it will be argued that the coalescence of these two widespread motifs into the distinctively Anglo-Saxon imagery of the zoomorphic mouth of hell may have been triggered by the cosmology and eschatology of two apocrypha especially popular in early medieval England, the Seven Heavens apocryphon and the Gospel of Nicodemus, especially its section on the Descensus ad Inferos. The discussion of relevant textual, manuscript, and iconographic evidence will afford intriguing insights into the shaping of this syncretic blending, as well as hinting at the milieu where such a blending may have been if not initiated, then at least endorsed and popularised