Project History

The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database was conceived in 2008 by Caroline Bruzelius (Duke University) with William Tronzo (University of California San Diego), and in 2011 was awarded a three-year Collaborative Research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Beginning in 2011, the project design team created the database at the Department of Art, History and Visual Studies at Duke University, with Paola Vitolo (previously Università di Catania, presently Dipartimento di Architettura, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”) as Project Manager. The NEH funds also supported four Italian postdoctoral researchers, whose many contributions made it possible to launch the public website in 2016. Duke contributed support staff, database and website programming, and data storage for the project.

At Duke, the database was developed using Claris FileMaker software, a multi-user, cross-platform relational program hosted on a FileMaker server managed by Duke’s Trinity Technology Services and housed on Windows virtual servers. The website was built with standard web technologies: html, css, php, and Javascript. The FileMaker database served as the backend for the website content, except for the images, which were served via 360Works SuperContainer. Maps on the site were produced using the Google Maps API. In 2020, the website was moved to Drupal 8 to make it easier to support, which meant that it was no longer connected live to the FileMaker database and so received only periodic data updates.

Beginning in 2021, the Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database broadened its team of researchers and technologists to encompass colleagues at the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas, with a research platform in Italy at the Centro per la Storia dell’Arte e dell’Architettura delle Città Portuali “La Capraia” (a collaboration between the O’Donnell Institute and the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte). Caroline Bruzelius became Project Director Emerita, and Paola Vitolo was joined by Sarah K. Kozlowski (O’Donnell Institute / La Capraia) as co-Project Director. At the end of 2022, the database and website were transferred from Duke to the O’Donnell Institute, which now houses and maintains the project’s digital resources. The public website was relaunched in the Fall of 2023.

At the O’Donnell Institute, the project’s data is stored in a Claris FileMaker Pro database. The database is hosted by the cloud-based service 360Works, which allows for scalability as the database and the team grow, and makes it possible for the team to access and modify the project’s data from anywhere in the world. The platform’s online digital environments for data entry and editing allows the team to communicate and work collaboratively even at a distance. To integrate the database with the public-facing website, the O’Donnell Institute uses standard web technologies (html, css, php, and Javascript) with a live connection to the FileMaker database. The images continue to be stored in and served via 360Works SuperContainer. Together, these tools make it possible for the team to collaborate across multiple institutions in the United States, Italy, and beyond, and to share our very latest work through the public website.

The database uses the cataloging guidelines developed for the Society of Architectural Historians Architecture Resources Archive (SAHARA), and the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus for standard art historical terminology. Categories are based on the VRA and Dublin core.

Learn more about our project team.