Apollo and Daphne and iconographic research: digital methodologies for art history

Abstract

the project, called “Apollo and Daphne and iconographic research: digital methodologies for art history”, focuses on the digitalisation of relevant works of art and extends their use and reuse on the web, eventually exploring some tools that could improve iconographic research. As a case study, 25 works of art representing the myth of Apollo and Daphne produced from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries in all fields of art, such as sculpture, painting and illuminated manuscripts have been chosen. These 25 images belonging from different historical and artistical periods were enough to create an iconographic canon that can been studied using digital tools. The choice of Ovid’s myth was motivated by the deep connection between the text (original and translated) and the huge artistic production on the mythological subject increased by the fifteenth century because of renewed interest in the Latin poem and classical world in general.