Description
The application of digital humanities to musicological research is expanding rapidly, yet building tools that can accommodate the layered readings required by the iconological analysis of music-iconographic sources remains a substantial challenge. In-Music, hosted by the University of Barcelona and funded by a 2024 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship, tackles this challenge on two levels. The first phase of the project focuses on the construction of a new semantic database model, designed to reflect the interpretive dimensions of musical imagery through structured data, tailored descriptors, and platform functionalities. Particular attention is given to managing uncertainty within the sources while embedding the cultural dynamics of the context into a structure compatible with the cataloguing practices of the discipline. A key concern is reproducibility and adaptability: while centred on 15th- and 16th-century Spanish material, In-Music aims to provide a flexible model applicable to other early modern settings. The same principles will guide the project’s second phase, involving the development—in collaboration with the Xarxa de Museus d’Art de Catalunya and the Museu de la Música—of interactive communication tools. A brief methodological introduction to this phase will also be presented.
