Domain question-driven Linked Data modeling
The case study of iconological studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/21213Keywords:
AIUCD2023, iconological studies, domain knowledge representation, question-driven approach, Linked Open DataAbstract
Currently, there is an increasing interest in experimenting with applications of computer science to humanistic disciplines. Although some domains successfully integrated some digital tools and techniques in their methods, some other domains had a slower, narrow integration. This paper addresses the challenge of experimenting with the translation of qualitative research into a quantitative one, by presenting the experience of the creation of a domain-specific Linked Open Data (LOD) dataset of iconographic and iconological art studies, namely, the Iconology Dataset. The peculiarity of the process adopted lies in its strong grounding in the theoretical framework of the domain, as it followed an ontological modeling according to the key theories proposed and a modeling and analysis through the scholars’ key research questions. For the sake of enhancing the transfer of the approach to other studies, we refined it in 5 phases and presented a general description of them. For its characteristics of lack of formalization and interdisciplinary nature, we argue that the approach developed for the iconographical-iconological research field can be relevant for the methodological transfer to other domains.
References
[1] Abu-Salih, Bilal. 2021. ‘Domain-Specific Knowledge Graphs: A Survey’. Journal of Network and Computer Applications 185 (July). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2021.103076.
[2] Anderson, Margo. 2007. ‘Quantitative History’. In The Sage Handbook of Social Science Methodology, edited by Stephen Turner and William Outhwaite, 246–63. London: Sage Publications.
[3] Baroncini, Sofia. 2024. ‘Diving into Artworks Interpretations through the Lenses of Semantic Data: An Application on Panofsky’s Iconological Studies’. Doctoral Thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna. https://doi.org/10.48676/unibo/amsdottorato/11312.
[4] Baroncini, Sofia. 2025. ‘The Iconology Dataset v1.0.0’. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15348584.
[5] Baroncini, Sofia, Bruno Sartini, and Marilena Daquino. 2025. ‘An Analysis of Symbolic Associations in the Arts Based on Open Data’. Paper accepted at DH2025, Lisbon, July 2025.
[6] Baroncini, Sofia, Marilena Daquino, and Francesca Tomasi. 2021. ‘Modelling art interpretation and meaning. A data model for describing iconology and iconography.’ AIDAinformazioni 1–2: 39–62.
[7] ———. 2023. ‘Are Domain-Specific Theoretical Approaches Valuable for the Application of New Computational Methods? The Case Study of Erwin Panofsky’s Artworks Interpretations and the Semantic Web’. In Digitale Methoden in Der Geschichtswissenschaftlichen Praxis: Fachliche Transformationen Und Ihre Epistemologischen Konsequenzen: Konferenzbeiträge Der Digital History 2023, Berlin, 23.-26.5.2023, edited by Melanie Althage, Martin Dröge, Torsten Hiltmann, and Claudia Prinz. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8321994.
[8] Baroncini, Sofia, Bruno Sartini, baroMarieke Van Erp, Francesca Tomasi, and Aldo Gangemi. 2023. ‘Is Dc:Subject Enough? A Landscape on Iconography and Iconology Statements of Knowledge Graphs in the Semantic Web’. Journal of Documentation 79 (7): 115–36. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2022-0207.
[9] Brouwer, Judith, and Harm Nijboer. 2017. ‘Golden Agents. A Web of Linked Biographical Data for the Dutch Golden Age’. In Proceedings of the Second Conference on Biographical Data in a Digital World 2017, 33–38. Linz, Austria: CEUR Workshop Proceedings.
[10] Bühren, Ralf Van, and Maciej Jan Jasiński. 2024. ‘The Invisible Divine in the History of Art. Is Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) Still Relevant for Decoding Christian Iconography?’ Church, Communication and Culture 9 (1): 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/23753234.2024.2322546.
[11] Carboni and Luca. 2019. ‘An Ontological Approach to the Description of Visual and Iconographical Representations’. Heritage 2 (2): 1191–1210. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage2020078.
[12] Cardini, Franco. 2001. The Chapel of the Magi in Palazzo Medici. Firenze: Mandragora.
[13] Carriero, Valentina Anita, Marilena Daquino, Aldo Gangemi, Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese, Silvio Peroni, Valentina Presutti, and Francesca Tomasi. 2020. ‘The Landscape of Ontology Reuse Approaches’. In Applications and Practices in Ontology Design, Extraction, and Reasoning, 21–38. IOS Press. https://doi.org/10.3233/SSW200033.
[14] Carriero, Valentina Anita, Aldo Gangemi, Maria Letizia Mancinelli, Ludovica Marinucci, Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese, Valentina Presutti, and Chiara Veninata. 2019. ‘ArCo: The Italian Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graph’. In The Semantic Web – ISWC 2019, edited by Chiara Ghidini, Olaf Hartig, Maria Maleshkova, Vojtěch Svátek, Isabel Cruz, Aidan Hogan, Jie Song, Maxime Lefrançois, and Fabien Gandon, 11779:36–52. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30796-7_3.
[15] Castellano, Giovanna, Vincenzo Digeno, Giovanni Sansaro, and Gennaro Vessio. 2022. ‘ArtGraph’. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6337958.
[16] Christiansen, Keith. 1986. ‘Lorenzo Lotto and the Tradition of Epithalamic Paintings’. Apollo 124:166–73.
[17] Daquino, Marilena, and Francesca Tomasi. 2015. ‘Historical Context Ontology (HiCO): A Conceptual Model for Describing Context Information of Cultural Heritage Objects’. In Metadata and Semantics Research, edited by Emmanouel Garoufallou, Richard J. Hartley, and Panorea Gaitanou, 544:424–36. Communications in Computer and Information Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24129-6_37.
[18] Daquino, Marilena, Francesca Mambelli, Silvio Peroni, Francesca Tomasi, and Fabio Vitali. 2017. ‘Enhancing Semantic Expressivity in the Cultural Heritage Domain: Exposing the Zeri Photo Archive as Linked Open Data’. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 10 (4): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3051487.
[19] Dijkshoorn, Chris, Lizzy Jongma, Lora Aroyo, Jacco van Ossenbruggen, Guus Schreiber, Wesley ter Weele, and Jan Wielemaker. 2018. ‘The Rijksmuseum Collection as Linked Data’. Semantic Web 9 (2): 221–30. https://doi.org/10.3233/SW-170257.
[20] Doerr, Martin. 2003. ‘The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Module: An Ontological Approach to Semantic Interoperability of Metadata’. AI Magazine 24 (3): 75–92. https://doi.org/10.1609/aimag.v24i3.1720.
[21] ———. 2009. ‘Ontologies for Cultural Heritage’. In Handbook on Ontologies, edited by Steffen Staab and Rudi Studer, 463–86. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_21.
[22] Drucker, Johanna. 2021. The Digital Humanities Coursebook: An Introduction to Digital Methods for Research and Scholarship. 1st ed. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003106531.
[23] Duits, Rembrandt. 2018. ‘Classified Iconography: A New Data Model for the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database’. In 2018 5th International Symposium on Emerging Trends and Technologies in Libraries and Information Services (ETTLIS), 155–58. IEEE.
[24] Evans, Eric. 2004. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software. Addison-Wesley Professional.
[25] ———. 2014. Domain-Driven Design Reference: Definitions and Pattern Summaries. Dog Ear Publishing.
[26] Färber, Michael, Frederic Bartscherer, Carsten Menne, and Achim Rettinger. 2017. ‘Linked Data Quality of DBpedia, Freebase, OpenCyc, Wikidata, and YAGO’. Semantic Web 9 (1): 77–129. https://doi.org/10.3233/SW-170275.
[27] Filipiak, Dominik, Henning Agt-Rickauer, Christian Hentschel, Agata Filipowska, and Harald Sack. 2016. ‘Quantitative Analysis of Art Market Using Ontologies, Named Entity Recognition and Machine Learning: A Case Study’. In Business Information Systems, edited by Witold Abramowicz, Rainer Alt, and Bogdan Franczyk, 79–90. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39426-8_7.
[28] Flanders, Julia, and Fotis Jannidis. 2015. Knowledge Organization and Data Modeling in the Humanities.
[29] Floud, Roderick. 2013. An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Historians. Routledge.
[30] Garijo, Daniel, Oscar Corcho, and María Poveda-Villalón. 2021. ‘FOOPS!: An Ontology Pitfall Scanner for the FAIR Principles.’ In Proceedings of the ISWC 2021 Posters, Demos and Industry Tracks: From Novel Ideas to Industrial Practice. Vol. 2980. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2980/paper321.pdf.
[31] Ginzburg, Carlo. 1986. ‘Da A. Warburg a E. H. Gombrich. Note su un problema di metodo’. In Miti, emblemi, spie: morfologia e storia, 29–106. Torino: Einaudi.
[32] Gombrich, E. H. 1972. Symbolic images. London: Phaidon.
[33] Imdahl, Max. 2012. ‘Iconica. L’intuizione Delle Immagini’. Aisthesis 5 (2): 11–32. https://doi.org/10.13128/Aisthesis-11474.
[34] Jain, Nitisha. 2020. ‘Domain-Specific Knowledge Graph Construction for Semantic Analysis’. In The Semantic Web: ESWC 2020 Satellite Events, edited by Andreas Harth, Valentina Presutti, Raphaël Troncy, Maribel Acosta, Axel Polleres, Javier D. Fernández, Josiane Xavier Parreira, Olaf Hartig, Katja Hose, and Michael Cochez, 250–60. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62327-2_40.
[35] Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice. 2012. ‘ARTL@S: A Spatial and Trans-National Art History Origins and Positions of a Research Program’. Artl@s Bulletin 1 (1).
[36] ———. 2018. ‘Databases and Project Management in Digital Humanities: Inside Project Artl@s’. Translated by Michelle Arriss, Delaina Haslam, and Séverine Sofio. Biens Symboliques / Symbolic Goods 2. https://doi.org/10.4000/bssg.244.
[37] Keet, C. Maria, and Zubeida Casmod Khan. 2024. ‘Discerning and Characterising Types of Competency Questions for Ontologies’. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.13688.
[38] ———. 2025. ‘On the Roles of Competency Questions in Ontology Engineering’. In Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, edited by Mehwish Alam, Marco Rospocher, Marieke Van Erp, Laura Hollink, and Genet Asefa Gesese, 15370:123–32. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-77792-9_8.
[39] Kejriwal, Mayank. 2019. Domain-Specific Knowledge Graph Construction. Springer Briefs in Computer Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12375-8.
[40] Lang, Sabine, and Ommer Björn. 2021. ‘Transforming Information Into Knowledge: How Computational Methods Reshape Art History’. Digital Humanities Quarterly 15 (3).
[41] Liepe, Lena Eva. 2019. The Locus of Meaning in Medieval Art: Iconography, Iconology, and Interpreting the Visual Imagery of the Middle Ages. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/241/edited_volume/book/68039.
[42] Monfardini, Glaice Kelly Q., Jordana S. Salamon, and Monalessa P. Barcellos. 2023. ‘Use of Competency Questions in Ontology Engineering: A Survey’. In Conceptual Modeling, edited by João Paulo A. Almeida, José Borbinha, Giancarlo Guizzardi, Sebastian Link, and Jelena Zdravkovic, 14320:45–64. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47262-6_3.
[43] Müller, Marion G. 2011. ‘Iconography and Iconology as a Visual Method and Approach’. In The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods, by Eric Margolis and Luc Pauwels, 283–97. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446268278.n15.
[44] Nguyen, Huyen, Haihua Chen, Jiangping Chen, Kate Kargozari, and Junhua Ding. 2023. ‘Construction and Evaluation of a Domain-Specific Knowledge Graph for Knowledge Discovery’. Information Discovery and Delivery 51 (4): 358–70. https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-06-2022-0054.
[45] Oberbichler, Sarah, and Eva Pfanzelter. 2021. ‘Topic-Specific Corpus Building: A Step towards a Representative Newspaper Corpus on the Topic of Return Migration Using Text Mining Methods’. Journal of Digital History, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/JDH-2021-1003?locatt=label:JDHFULLhttps://journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/4yxHGiqXYRbX.
[46] Ondraszek, Sarah Rebecca, Grischka Petri, Ulrike Blumenthal, Lisa Dieckmann, Etienne Posthumus, and Harald Sack. 2024. ‘eXtreme Design for Ontological Engineering in the Digital Humanities with Viewsari, a Knowledge Graph of Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives’. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop of Semantic Digital Humanities (SemDH 2024). Vol. 3724. Hersonissos, Greece: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3724/paper5.pdf.
[47] Panofsky, Erwin. 1955. Meaning in the Visual Arts. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
[48] ———. 1972a. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art. New York: Harper & Row.
[49] ———. 1972b. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
[50] Panofsky, Erwin, and Fritz Saxl. 1933. ‘Classical Mythology in Mediaeval Art’. Metropolitan Museum Studies 4(2): 228–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/1522803.
[51] Peroni, Silvio. 2016. ‘SAMOD: An Agile Methodology for the Development of Ontologies’. In Proceedings of the 13th OWL: Experiences and Directions Workshop and 5th OWL Reasoner Evaluation Workshop (OWLED-ORE 2016). https://w3id.org/people/essepuntato/papers/samod-owled2016.html.
[52] Presutti, Valentina, Enrico Daga, Aldo Gangemi, and Eva Blomqvist. 2009. ‘eXtreme Design with Content Ontology Design Patterns’. In Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Ontology Patterns, 516:83–97. Washington DC: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-516/pap21.pdf.
[53] Reppen, Randi. 2022. ‘Building a Corpus: What Are the Key Considerations?’ In The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, edited by Anne O’Keeffe and Michael McCarthy, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
[54] Rossi Pinelli, Orietta. 2014. La storia delle storie dell’arte. Torino: Einaudi.
[55] Rother, Lynn, Fabio Mariani, and Max Koss. 2023. ‘Hidden Value: Provenance as a Source for Economic and Social History’. Jahrbuch Für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook 64 (1): 111–42. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2023-0005.
[56] Santini, Cristian, Mary Ann Tan, Oleksandra Bruns, Tabea Tietz, Etienne Posthumus, and Harald Sack. 2022. ‘Knowledge Extraction for Art History: The Case of Vasari’s The Lives of The Artists (1568)’. In Proceedings of the Third Conference on Digital Curation Technologies. Berlin. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3234/paper7.pdf.
[57] Sartini, Bruno. 2023. ‘Connecting Works of Art within the Semantic Web of Symbolic Meanings’. Doctoral Thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna. http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/11020/.
[58] ———. 2024. ‘Deciphering Still Life Artworks With Linked Open Data’. Aarhus, Denmark, 2024. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3834/paper123.pdf.
[59] Sartini, Bruno, Sofia Baroncini, Marieke van Erp, Francesca Tomasi, and Aldo Gangemi. 2023. ‘ICON: An Ontology for Comprehensive Artistic Interpretations’. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 16 (3): 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1145/3594724.
[60] Sartini, Bruno, Marieke van Erp, and Aldo Gangemi. 2021. ‘Marriage Is a Peach and a Chalice: Modelling Cultural Symbolism on the Semantic Web’. In Proceedings of the 11th on Knowledge Capture Conference, 201–8. Virtual Event USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3460210.3493552.
[61] Schich, Maximilian, Christian Huemer, Piotr Adamczyk, Lev Manovich, and Yang-Yu Liu. 2017. ‘Network Dimensions in the Getty Provenance Index’. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1706.02804.
[62] Simonton, Dean Keith. 2003. ‘Qualitative and Quantitative Analyses of Historical Data’. Annual Review of Psychology 54 (1): 617–40. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145034.
[63] Suárez-Figueroa, Mari Carmen, Asunción Gómez-Pérez, and Mariano Fernández-López. 2015. ‘The NeOn Methodology Framework: A Scenario-Based Methodology for Ontology Development’. Applied Ontology 10 (2): 107–45. https://doi.org/10.3233/AO-150145.
[64] Suárez-Figueroa, María, Asuncion Gomez-Perez, and Boris Villazon Terrazas. 2009. ‘How to Write and Use the Ontology Requirements Specification Document’. In On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2009: Confederated International Conferences, CoopIS, DOA, IS, and ODBASE 2009, Vilamoura, Portugal, November 1-6, 2009, Proceedings, 2:966–82. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-05151-7_16.
[65] Szabo, Victoria. 2012. ‘Transforming Art History Research with Database Analytics: Visualizing Art Markets’. Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America 31 (2): 158–75. https://doi.org/10.1086/668109.
[66] Taylor, Paul. 2008. Iconography without Texts. Warburg Institute Colloquia. London, Turin: Warburg Institute; N. Aragno.
[67] Tomasi, Francesca. 2022. Organizzare la conoscenza: Digital Humanities e Web semantico. Editrice Bibliografica. https://doi.org/10.53134/9788893573573.
[68] Van den Heuvel, Charles. 2024. ‘Henri van de Waal’s (1910-1972) Unfinished Beeldleer: Exploring New Potentials of an Iconological Classification for the History of the Arts’. Oud Holland–Journal for Art of the Low Countries 137 (4): 201–36.
[69] Van Straten, Roelof. 2012. An Introduction to Iconography: Symbols, Allusions and Meaning in the Visual Arts. London: Routledge.
[70] Vrandečić, Denny, and Markus Krötzsch. 2014. ‘Wikidata: A Free Collaborative Knowledgebase’. Communications of the ACM 57 (10): 78–85. https://doi.org/10.1145/2629489.
[71] Warburg, Aby. 1999. The renewal of pagan antiquity: contributions to the cultural history of the European Renaissance. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities.
[72] Warburg, Aby, Roberto Ohrt, Axel Heil, Bernd Michael Scherer, Bill Sherman, and Claudia Wedepohl. 2020. Aby Warburg: Bilderatlas Mnemosyne: The Original. Berlin, London, Berlin: HKW, Haus der Kulturen der Welt ; The Warburg Institute ; Hatje Cantz.
[73] West, Matthew. 2011. Developing High Quality Data Models. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.
[74] Wiśniewski, Dawid, Jedrzej Potoniec, Agnieszka Ławrynowicz, and C. Maria Keet. 2019. ‘Analysis of Ontology Competency Questions and Their Formalizations in SPARQL-OWL’. Journal of Web Semantics 59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.websem.2019.100534.
[75] Wittkower, Rudolf. 1977. Allegory and the migration of symbols. Collected essays of Rudolf Wittkower. London: Thames and Hudson.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Sofia Baroncini, Marilena Daquino, Francesca Tomasi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
