About Verso

Verso publishes short, illustrated essays dealing with the history, methodology, technology and use of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance. In this manner Verso offers members of the Census staff, database users, collaborators and fellows a venue in which to discuss their experiences working with the project. Essays discussing research that has resulted from an engagement with the Census, or methodological reflections upon the project are welcome. The site is intended to serve as a platform for discussion open to the wider community.

The Census is a historic project which began in 1946 and has been sustained by international collaborations for over 75 years. Its fundamental research aim has been to trace the knowledge of antique monuments in the Renaissance era (1400-1600). Over its first decades, the project grew as a partnership between New York University and The Warburg Institute under the direction of the archaeologist Phyllis Pray Bober. Using a system of index cards and photographs, Bober and her collaborators linked antiquities (primarily statues, reliefs and sarcophagi) with Renaissance texts and images made between 1400 and 1600 (such as prints, drawings, statuettes, medals and paintings).  

In the 1980s, in partnership with the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, the project expanded to include the reception of antique architecture. With support from the Getty Trust, the Census was digitised in the 1980s, and its database has continued to evolve ever since. In 1990s the Census was established at the Institut für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. It was made part of a professorship of Early Modern Art in the Institute, first held by Arnold Nesselrath, and was from 2003-2017 supported as a long-term project of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 

The title Verso pays homage to the way in which Phyllis Pray Bober, Ruth Rubinstein and others added their own handwritten notes on the backs of Census photographs and index cards during the era in which the analogue Census was built. In the spirit of these collaborative annotations, contributions are sought that offer ‘behind the scenes’ reflections on the Census project, its meaning, its history, its relationship with the field of digital humanities, and its future.

To suggest a contribution to Verso, please write to census.ikb@hu-berlin.de.

Kathleen Christian

Kathleen Christian is Director of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance and Professor of Early Modern Art at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

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