However, as far as we know, no team or project has yet undertaken a study to use state-of-the-art deep learning methods to find illuminations in medieval manuscripts across IIIF libraries. Some individual projects have emerged recently using deep learning and statistical learning techniques using IIIF files ( Moreux 2019 Nakamura 2019 Eyharabide et al. As of 2019, one billion images have become available, and about 300 million of them date from the medieval period. With the development of the IIIF since 2011, researchers have been provided with massive digital iconographic data, which is a decisive factor in identifying medieval illustrations of various kinds (drawings, illuminations, diagrams). Unfortunately, it is limited to specific national, regional, and local collections. Where such tools exist - as in the CNRS Initiale database ( Initiale 2021) - this meticulous work has been carried out manually. However, few digital tools collect and classify these images. The document analysis is often already partially or completely done within library catalogues, with precise references to the images located in the manuscripts’ textual description: the position (folio number), techniques used, and subjects treated in each illumination are often already mentioned through associated metadata. §2 For medievalists, art historians, and all scientists searching for these iconographic sources, one of the main problems lies in finding the right illuminations within the manuscripts’ pages. Illumination of a character “B.” Folio 7r, “St Omer” or “Rede” Psalter, MS 98, Christ Church, University of Oxford, 1201–1300. These images therefore also give us essential information about, for example, the role and place of sound in medieval society. Moreover, the medieval image is not always, as is sometimes thought, a “Bible for the illiterate, but rather a creation in which form and content are intrinsically linked, with a strong plastic thought and a visual language in which analogies, metaphors, and associations of meaning are numerous” ( Baschet 2008). For example, in musicology, medieval iconography analysis brings useful information on the instruments’ nature, instruments’ organological characteristics, physical characteristics, or playing methods (the research team proposing this article focuses mainly on music in the Middle Ages therefore, we have developed the first multi-object database in medieval musical iconography: Musiconis - ), as shown in Figure 1: We observe a figure holding a key used to tune a string on a harp. Illuminations thus became iconographic elements essential in medieval studies and sources of complementary historical knowledge in other fields of study (archaeology, art history, architecture, musicology, or literature). During the Merovingian period, symbolic ornaments appear in the manuscripts’ pages and, in the 11 th and 12 th centuries, with the development of artistic centres in France (Benedictine monasteries, including the remarkable Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy), manuscripts sometimes reflect a local style. During the Carolingian period, artistic centres with particular styles develop in different cities around workshops (Court School of Charlemagne, Rheimsian style, Touronian style, Drogo style, Court School of Charles the Bald). Some documents have survived showing obvious decorative elements: for example, ancient Homeric poems (e.g., the Papyrus 114, Bankes Homer, created during the 2nd century and written in Greek ) or biblical codices (e.g., the Codex Alexandrinus, a fifth-century Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament: ). The history of illumination probably goes back to antiquity. Illuminations are handmade decorations that adorn a manuscript, such as initials, borders, and illustrations. §1 In the Middle Ages, drawings and paintings in manuscripts often adorned the pages to illustrate or comment on the text.
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