Ceiling and mural paintings are constitutive elements in the design of baroque interiors. Unlike all other forms of pictorial art, these truly three-dimensional artistic media define early modern architecture literally from above, through colourful and complex iconographic programmes: in ecclesiastical as well as secular environments, in residential palaces and ceremonial halls, churches and…
Medieval and early modern inscriptions crafted before 1650, in Latin and German language, situated in German-speaking areas are at the heart of this project. Inscriptions are significant and unique historical sources because they are often preserved in an authentic state and in their original setting. For the premodern era, script which was affixed to stone, wood, metal, glass as well as textiles…
The Coptic-Sahidic Bible is one of the most important literary witnesses of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean. The Coptic Old Testament, which essentially dates back to the 4th century, is one of the earliest and most extensive versions of the Greek Septuagint (LXX). The translation of the Bible into Coptic was source and inspiration for the entire Coptic-Christian literature of Egypt. In…
Das Forschungsprojekt Johann Caspar Lavater – Historisch-kritische Edition ausgewählter Briefwechsel (JCLB) digitalisiert und erfasst den Bestand der weit über 20'000 Briefe von und an Lavater, um in einer Web-basierten Online-Edition davon ausgewählte Briefwechsel zu edieren und Lavaters gesamte Korrespondenz erstmals synoptisch in ihrer ganzen Komplexität und ihrem Umfang für die Forschung zu…
The “Neue Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe” brings forward Johannes Brahms’ compositional oeuvre in a historical-critical edition. Included are alternative versions, that remained unpublished by the composer, as well as adaptations by the composer of his own and external works. The goal of the edition is the reproduction of authentic texts, which are relieved from typing-, copying, and engraving…
Subject of the research project is the complete critical edition of the two-part treatise on the psychical pneuma written by the Byzantine physician and scholar John Zacharias (about 1275–1328) with a German translation and its contextualization in medical and intellectual history as well as the history of its reception. This work is of central importance especially for the history of psychology,…
The „Katalog der deutschsprachigen illustrierten Handschriften des Mittelalters", KdiH, (Catalogue of German-Language Illustrated Medieval Manuscripts) provides a basis for the text-image-research in the German lands. It focuses on the specific interplay and multi-facetted interdependencies of text and image. Art historians and textual scholars of German vernacular texts work hand in hand,…
Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) is, apart from Max Weber, the most important German sociologist of the 20th century. His social theory and theory of society, continuously developed over a period of 30 years, is internationally outstanding. The extensive body of Luhmann’s literary estate, which the University of Bielefeld was able to acquire in 2010, sheds light on the author and the edifice of his…
Orlando di Lasso (1530/1532-1594) was the most important composer of the 16th century. His oeuvre comprises more than 1300 compositions, about 480 prints from the years between 1555 and 1687 confirm his popularity and the unbroken performance tradition long after his death. He worked at the court of the Wittelsbach dukes Albrecht V. and Wilhelm V. (from 1557 as tenor and from 1563 until his death…
The name of Dionysius the Areopagite refers to the Athenian, who according to Acts 17:34 was converted by St. Paul’s speech on the Areopagus and then followed him. The name was adopted by a prolific unknown author around 500 A.D., with a vast number of writings based on the tremendous influence of his synthesizing of neo-platonic philosophy and Christian theology. The manuscript tradition is a…
The Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA) offers a unique wealth of scientifically sound information on historical and contemporary Swiss art as Open Access on the Internet. These online services include the four-language "SIKART Lexicon of Art in Switzerland" (www.sikart.ch), various electronic catalogues raisonnés of prominent Swiss artists and digitised documents from the Swiss Art…
The objective of the project is to remedy two of the most serious desiderata from the long history of the research of the German language:
The German dialects have been investigated intensively for 180 years (Schmeller 1821). For the “modern regional languages”, i.e. the linguistic variation areas, which present the spoken everyday language of most of the members of the linguistic community in…
The research project is supervised by an institution of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Its objective is the establishment of a tripartite analytic-semantic handbook, which essentially provides a new foundation for the history of towns and urbanization during the premodern period. Additionally, it constitutes an important instrument for a multitude of historically oriented…
The Swiss Idioticon is an institute for the research and documentation of the German language and its dialects in Switzerland. Its main task is the development of the dictionary of the Swiss-German language (Swiss Idiotikon) in printed and digital form. This work describes Alemannic vocabulary in Switzerland from the late Middle Ages to the 21st century. It is the largest regional dictionary in…
Human evolution is a story of expansions. During the last two million years the genus Homo spread from Africa into Asia and Europe in several waves of migration. New species developed and old groups became extinct (range expansions). As early as three million years ago, hominins had established new ways of dealing with their specific environment through culture. Stone tools produced with the help…