Since ancient painting was thought to be lost forever, its study was for a very long time completely dependent on literary sources which describe the art and its techniques. Whether these descriptions are real or fanciful, they fed the imagination of both specialists and amateurs with an idealized portrait of antiquity. Indeed, the descriptions in the literary sources were often written centuries after the works of art were produced, and therefore left open to the writersâ creativity. Thankfully, the archaeological discoveries of the past 50 years have revealed a more realistic picture of Greek and Roman painting. Amazing monuments of ancient painting were discovered: Bronze Age wall paintings in Knossos, Akrotiri, and Pylos, funerary paintings in the tombs at Vergina, as well as a wealth of material which is being continually uncovered on sites around the Mediterranean world. Our knowledge of the techniques, materials, and uses of ancient painting has thus progressed extraordinarily, which has spurred the publication of many broad overviews as well as specialized books and papers.1 Cutting-edge technologies such as physico-chromatic pigment analysis and 3D reconstructions of lost buildings are regularly used by archaeologists in the study of ancient painting. Yet, the field has been slow and timid in integrating the world of digital humanities. To our knowledge, there is no specific digital tool or database available to work with Greco-Roman painting, besides databases of archaeological objects such as the Beazley Archive and the catalogs of major museums such as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Louvre.2 The closest thing to such a tool is the Digital LIMC (LIMC archives in Basel: https://weblimc.org/page/home/Basel) and the databases out forth by the University of Cologne: Arachne (https://arachne.uni-koeln.de/drupal/) which collects archaeological objects from the Greco-Roman world from the data of the Deutsches ArchĂ€ologisches Institut (DAI) (archival images, manuscripts, collections of moldings, etc.). In this way, ancient painting is relatively absent from the digital humanities toolbox, since most existing projects tend to focus on written sources such as manuscripts and epigraphy.3
Most of the publications that deal with ancient painting are traditional âbeaux livresâ (coffee-table books) or overviews which cover almost 2,500 years of history. There are also conference proceedings focusing on specific questions such as color, materials, imagery, iconography, and technical and aesthetic vocabulary. Among recent research topics, the question of context, in its broadest sense, has been a major preoccupation for specialists.4 Many have been working on the question of the context of discovery of ancient paintings, and, perhaps more importantly, on the general cultural context of the works, such as how the paintings were made and how they relate to their social and cultural environment.5 This question of the context is not new; it has always been important for art historians. However, because of the new archaeological finds and the resulting better knowledge of ancient painting, the question of context is continually renewed.
Working with digital tools in art history allows precisely that: to question the context of the works of art and to interrogate further the environment of the works and the circumstances of their production. In general, digital tools allow for a better understanding of the interaction between the works of art and their immediate environment (Brown 1â6), and they also allow for a better understanding of the worksâ history in their original context and of the history of their reception. For instance, through mapping, digital art history offers for example, the ability to study the spread of an âavant-gardeâ movement (futurism) in the 1900s (Joyeux-Prunel 94â95, Figure 7.4). Why then, could we not do the same with the sources about ancient painting, whether textual or archaeological? This is the idea that prompted the creation of the Digital Milliet: we want to connect the texts and the archaeological sources about ancient painting so as to gain a better understanding of the environment in which the paintings were made. As a result, we hope to view the sources about ancient painting in a new light.
When the Recueil des textes grecs et latins relatifs Ă lâhistoire de la peinture ancienne, or Recueil Milliet, was published in 1921 it was, in many ways, unprecedented. No sourcebook, in the early 20th century, offered such a comprehensive collection of Greek and Latin texts devoted to ancient Greek and Roman painting. The texts were accompanied by translations and, most importantly, by commentaries that included the most recent archeological discoveries and philological knowledge. Almost a century later, the Recueil Milliet is still unique. It is an accessible reference work and, as its most recent editor Agnes Rouveret has shown, in many ways a very âmodernâ reference work (Rouveret, âAdolphe-Joseph Reinachâ; âLes Reinach et la peinture antiqueâ; Reinach).
Since 2014, the Perseids Project team based at Tufts University has been working on bringing the Recueil Milliet another step further into modernity by offering it as a digital resource. Thanks to three successful rounds of funding with the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Digital Milliet (https://digmill.perseids.org/) now offers an online catalogue of ancient Greek and Roman texts presented by author and entry number. Each text is accompanied by a revised French translation, a new English translation, and a commentary. As of the time of writing, we have about 100 texts available (including 66 fully commented and revised texts) and a robust editing and presentation interface.
Of course, the Digital Milliet is not flawless, nor is it finished, therefore there is room for improvement. The objective of this volume, and of the international conference in which it originated, is to take stock of our progress, evaluate the quality of what we have done, describe how it articulates with the rest of the field, and finally identify areas for growth. We aim to define the audience of the Digital Milliet, the needs of this audience, and to conduct an audit of the work that has been done. Is the existing resource meeting the needs of the audience? What is needed that is not there? What is there that is not needed or does not work well?
The process of reflecting heavily on one project prompts further reflections on the place of digital tools in art history and classics, how they come into the process of research, and how scholars who publish traditional printed work use digital tools in their research. Indeed, despite an apparent divide in the humanities between digital and analog, the two categories are permeable. The Digital Milliet is a case in point, where the digital resource we are creating is an intermediary between the original book and new work created digitally or in traditional print format by our users. Furthermore, the creation of the Digital Milliet entries involves much traditional library research in order to create an up-to-date resource that accurately reflects the state of the field. Thus, in a broader perspective, the volume aims to investigate the points of overlap and the mutualism that currently exists between digital and analog scholarship. For this reason, we find it appropriate to publish this book in a traditional print format rather than as an electronic resource.
The ability to hold such a critical reflection is one of the many luxuries afforded by a digital project: everything that is done can be improved upon, redesigned, and reshaped in an iterative process. For this to be possible, however, two important and rather rare conditions must be met, namely that the team is in a position to cast a critical eye at the work, and that financial and human resources are available to implement the changes. And, in fact, these two conditions for continuous improvement, which are intrinsic characteristics of digital work, are at odds with one another. The relentless pressures of securing funding and of defending this type of work to tenure committees and colleagues means that conceptual defects, unfinished projects, and even all out failures are rarely recognized (Dombrowski, âWhatever Happenedâ; âTowards a Taxonomyâ; Kirby). Instead, the field of Digital Humanities can sometimes feel like a shopping mall where every project competes to âpublicizeâ its success and wonderful, new, cutting-edge affordances. This is not to say that such successful and wonderful projects do not exist. On the contrary, they do. However, the field in general does not usually invite reflection on how projects can be improved upon, due to the pressures that come hand in hand with this type of work. On the flipside, traditional work, usually in print, is regularly assessed through peer-review and citations in other publications. When traditional works of scholarship have achieved a level of notoriety, after some time has elapsed, it is not uncommon to hold conferences to reevaluate the pros and cons of the contributions. This type of reflection and iteration is, or should be, built-in to digital work by nature.
We are fortunate to be in a position where such reflection and critical assessment is possible. We recognize that many of our colleagues cannot undertake such reflections due to structural barriers relative to identity such as racism, sexism and classism.6 In these cases, any description by scholars of their work which is not absolutely glowing may lead to negative consequences. We deplore this state of affairs, since it is profoundly anti-intellectual and greatly damaging both to the immediate victims and to the field, and we hope that by sharing our own critical reflections about our work, we may contribute to installing a culture of openness.
Engaging with Digital Humanities is to recognize that digitization has become a global phenomenon that deals with all aspects of culture in its broadest sense, including research and education. It also means taking on the challenges inherent to this field of research. Indeed, the question of digitization is part of a wider intellectual but also financial and political context. For instance, recent cultural policies in Europe and North America have made digitization in all its aspects a priority. The program Horizon 2020 and now Horizon Europe (2021â2027), funded by the European Commission, puts âdigital transformationâ as a priority in its political agreement.7 In Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts has put in place a vast program called âDigital Strategy Fundâ (2016â2021) focused on âstimulat[ing] the digital transformation of the arts sectors in Canada.â8 In the Canadian province of QuĂ©bec, the most recent cultural policy âPartout la cultureâ (2018â2023) of the MinistĂšre de la culture et des communications du QuĂ©bec9 includes a âplan culturel numĂ©riqueâ organized into five themes from experimentation and research to political programs and cultural mediation (http://culturenumerique.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/). By contrast, neither the SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) nor the FRQSC (Fonds de Recherche du QuĂ©bec SociĂ©tĂ© et Culture) propose grants specially designed for research and/or projects oriented towards digitization. However, considering the large scope of these grants, Digital Humanities projects can be funded by either of these institutions. The main orientation of these two major public granting institutions aims at cross-sectoral collaboration and establishing communication between researchers, citizens, and the general public.10 Recently the CRIHN (Centre de Recherche Interuniversitaire sur les HumanitĂ©s NumĂ©riques, MontrĂ©al, Canada) addressed critical questions about, among other things, funding and sustainability for Digital Humanities research in Canada, asking for better solutions adapted to the reality of Digital Humanities.11 In the United States, among public funding agencies and as far as we know, only the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) proposes funding especially designed for Digital Humanities projects via the Office for Digital Humanities (ODH).
However, the budget of the ODH is not as important as that of other offices of the NEH and, according to the ODH itself, the funding rate is very low (10%) (Chun and Rowdy; Brennan). The situation is the same with the SSHRC, whose budget is the lowest of the three Canadian public funding agencies. According to data for 2019, the agency had 215.5 million CAD for five years and then 54.8 million CAD each year. In contrast, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council received 354.7 million CAD in a five-year period and then 90.1 million CAD each year.12 Globally, Canada does not invest a lot in research compared with the United States or European countries such as France or Germany. In fact, according to data released by the World Bank, in Canada the expenses for research and development represents 1.57% of the GDP while in the United States it is 2.8% of the GDP. In Europe, Germany places first with expenses for research and development that represents 3.9% of its GDP, France is not far behind with 2.2% and 49.8 billion euros of its domestic spending dedicated to research and development.13
When it comes to funding research, there is a significant difference between European countries and North America: while, for example, research in France and Germany is mostly funded by public agencies such as the European Commission, in the United States and Canada both public and private funders support researchers. This raises important issues concerning the sustainability of projects. On the one hand, funding by public agencies is highly competitive as a result of the tight budget they have to work with. Therefore, not all the projects are funded and Digital Humanities teams have to turn to private foundations (Zborovsky). On the other hand, private foundations have bigger budgets but they also have high expectations about visibility and notoriety and at any time they can decide to withdraw their funding as for example happened to Project Bamboo (Dombrowski, âWhatever happenedâ; âTowards a Taxonomyâ). The criteria for receiving funding are also often less transparent than with public agencies....
