Annual Workshop - Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint
2024-03-21 - 2024-03-24 | Fondazione per le scienze religiose, Via San Vitale 114, Bologna
The Annual Workshop of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint (HTLS) took place, focusing on the ongoing preparation of Volume II. Scholars and researchers gathered to discuss the latest advancements and contributions to the project.
As part of the workshop, three interconnected transdisciplinary research projects on sacred texts and their legacies were presented. Anna Mambelli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia/FSCIRE) introduced uBIQUity – WP8 ITSERR: Illuminating the Sacred Texts of the Abrahamic Religions Between the Ancient and Digital Worlds, highlighting its role in bridging historical textual studies with digital humanities.

Seminar “L’anima, il cosmo, i quattro elementi: psicologia e filosofia della natura da Agostino a Varrone (con una postilla su Dante)"
2024-03-22 | Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Porta di Massa, 1, Napoli
The University of Naples Federico II hosted a seminar by Fabio Tutrone (University of Palermo) titled “L’anima, il cosmo, i quattro elementi: psicologia e filosofia della natura da Agostino a Varrone” (con una postilla su Dante).”
Part of the “Arbor Scientiarum” series, the seminar explored the role of the four elements in Augustine’s thought, drawing connections to Varro and Dante. The event provided new perspectives on the dialogue between classical philosophy and Christian theology.

#EUARE2024_Panel: Strengthening the Research Infrastructure RESILIENCE: the Italian project ITSERR
2024-05-20 08:00 - 2024-05-23 17:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Palermo
ITSERR took part in the panel “Strengthening the Research Infrastructure – RESILIENCE: the Italian project ITSERR” at the European Academy of Religion annual conference (#EuARe2024) in Palermo, organised by Francesca Cadeddu. In dialogue with the European research infrastructure RESILIENCE, ITSERR researchers – Marianna Napolitano, Usman Nawaz, Igor Spanò, Anna Mambelli, Sara Abram, Marcello Costa, Arianna Pavone, Vincenzo Roberto Imperia, Andrea Ravasco and Laura Righi – presented a series of case studies that cut across languages, traditions and formats: from the semantic analysis of Old Church Slavonic terms in the Symbol of Faith and the study of the Nicene‑Constantinopolitan Creed in Sanskrit, to transdisciplinary projects such as the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint, Resilient Septuagint and uBIQUity, devoted to sacred texts and their heritages; from experiments in 3D visualisation of the Corpus Iuris Canonici and of the Talmud to the use of generative artificial intelligence for rethinking the Pontifical Regesta in the REVErse Regesta project, the panel showed how ITSERR helps strengthen the research infrastructure by bringing together digital innovation and advanced study of religious sources.

Panel ITSERR at #EuARe2024
2024-05-21 08:30 - 16:30 | “Giorgio La Pira” Library, Via degli Schioppettieri, 25, Palermo, 90133, Italy
ITSERR is the Italian research project aimed at enhancing the ESFRI RESILIENCE Research Infrastructure. By endorsing new technological paradigms, the project is willing to play a pivotal role in enriching the diversity, the quality and innovation of knowledge produced by the community of Religious Studies.
The panel at EuARe 2024 presents the first research and methodological outcomes achieved by the ITSERR interdisciplinary team composed of researchers in Religious Studies and Information Technologies.

HTLS Annual Workshop
2024-06-06 | Fondazione per le scienze religiose, Via San Vitale 114, Bologna
FSCIRE – Fondazione per le scienze religiose hosted the conference “Citazioni, allusioni, metafore. Questioni di metodo su forme e dinamiche della rappresentazione” organized within the uBIQUity-WP8, ITSERR and PRIN 2022 “Resilient Septuagint” projects.
The conference explored methodological approaches to representation in the Septuagint. Anna Mambelli and Davide Dainese presented “uBIQUity – WP8 ITSERR, Scientific Presentation”.
The event featured presentations by prominent scholars, covering topics such as intertextuality, open science in the humanities, and metaphorical models for knowledge.

Citazioni, allusioni, metafore. Questioni di metodo su forme e dinamiche della rappresentazione
2024-06-06 | Fondazione per le scienze religiose – FSCIRE, via San Vitale, 114, Bologna
The conference “Citazioni, allusioni, metafore. Questioni di metodo su forme e dinamiche della rappresentazione” was held at the Fondazione per le scienze religiose in Bologna and organised within the ITSERR framework and the PRIN 2022 project “Resilient Septuagint”.
The programme included contributions by Alberto Melloni, Edmondo F. Lupieri, Armando Bisogno, Francesco Siri, Diego Quaglioni, Renzo Tosi, Cristina Marras and Riccardo Fedriga. The final round table was moderated by Davide Dainese and Anna Mambelli, with the participation of Sara Abram, Luca Arcari, Laura Bigoni, Laura Carnevale, Marcello Costa, Chiara Palillo, Isabella Pignocco, Arianna Rotondo, Giorgia Sampò, Gianluca Scatigno, Fabio Tutrone and Marco Zanella.
Their contribution is part of the research activities of the ITSERR project, in particular those developed within the uBIQUity line of research, dedicated to the study of forms of representation and the processes of interpreting religious sources.
Further details are available in the conference programme.

Third Plenary Meeting of ITSERR. State of the Art of ITSERR project and Training on Semantic Web, Ontologies and AI for Religious Studies
2024-06-10 09:30 - 2024-06-11 17:00 | Dipartimento di Educazione e Scienze Umane, viale Timavo 93, Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, 42121, Italy
ITSERR has organized its own Third plenary meeting on the 10th and 11th of June to present the state of the art of the project and to offer to its team members a training program.
ITSERR is the Italian project aimed at enhancing the RESILIENCE Research Infrastructure, whose high interdisciplinarity is finalized to meet the evolving needs of the Religious Studies scientific community by enriching the diversity, the quality and innovation of the knowledge in this specific domain. The project is developed thanks to the collaboration between humanists (experts on History, Philology and Christian, Islamic and Jewish Studies) and IT engineers.
The venue of the meeting is the Department of Education and Humanities of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, which is a partner of the Italian ITSERR Consortium.
The meeting involves more than 50 researchers, PhD students, Professors and technologists affiliated to the centres of the partnership (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, CNR, University of Turin, University of Palermo, University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
During the two days of work, besides their participation to workshops and round tables, team members willpresent the state of advancement of each WP of the project and will attend master classes offered by academics working within the national and international framework of data infrastructure and AI development, which will talk about Semantic annotation, Multimodal Foundation models and their applications on Human Sciences, Theories and concepts about semantic analysis.
Take a look to this link to consult the program: Ciclo di Training courses di ITSERR v_7giugno

III Convegno della medievistica italiana
2024-06-12 | University of Udine, Udine
Ilaria Sabbatini (University of Palermo) and Laura Righi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) took part in the panel “Nuovi strumenti per la Storia Medievale: memorie documentarie e Digital Humanities.”
Sabbatini presented the REVErse Regesta project, which combines palaeography, diplomatics and artificial intelligence to develop advanced methods for reverse regesta creation, automatic summarisation and categorisation of medieval documents, with a specific focus on papal registers. Righi offered a critical reflection on the methodological implications of using Digital Humanities tools for the study and editing of medieval sources.
The contributions of Sabbatini and Righi are part of the research activities of the ITSERR project, aimed at developing innovative digital tools and AI-based approaches for the analysis and enhancement of historical and religious heritage.
Further details are available in the conference program.

Digital Humanities & Artificial Intelligence
2024-06-17 | Meadow Suite – University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, Reading, RG6 6AH, United Kingdom
Our colleagues Federico Ruozzi and Amina El Ganadi participate within the program of the conference at the University of Reading – sponsored by the Digital Humanities CoP – with the paper “The Illusion of Knowledge: Interpreting AI Hallucinations in the Study of Humanities and the Black Box of LLMs”.
See the program of the conference: DH_AI_Final_Programme
Event Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Community of Practice

SEBD 2024 - Symposium on Advanced Database Systems
2024-06-23 - 2024-06-26 | Villasimius – Sardinia
Our colleagues, Giovanni Sullutrone and Luca Sala (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) made significant contributions to the 32nd Symposium on Advanced Database Systems, the leading annual event for the Italian database research community.
Sullutrone led a session on “Integrating Large Language Models in Digital Humanities,” showcasing cutting-edge applications of these models. Additionally, together with Sala, he presented “Text-to-SQL with Large Language Models: Promises and Pitfalls,” exploring both the potential and challenges of this technology.
The symposium, a key forum for academics and industry professionals, provided an excellent platform for ITSERR researchers to share their innovative work and engage with the broader database research community.

2CO Communicating Complexity Conference 2024
2024-07-04 - 2024-07-05 | Barcelona
Marcello Costa (University of Palermo) participated in the 2CO Communicating Complexity Conference 2024, presenting his paper “Ubiquity Platform. Data Visualization for Digital Humanities”.
The paper, developed within the ITSERR project, explores innovative strategies for data visualization in Digital Humanities, aiming to make complex data more accessible and understandable. The Ubiquity Platform offers new approaches to enhance the communication of digital resources, supporting interdisciplinary research and knowledge dissemination.

Conferenza annuale SID 2024 - Design e ricerca: Fonti e Risorse / Design and Research: Sources and Resources
2024-07-04 - 2024-07-05 | Università Iuav di Venezia
Cinzia Ferrara and Chiara Palillo (University of Palermo) participated in the SID 2024 National Conference – Design and Research: Sources and Resources, contributing to the discussion panel “Research Tools for Digital Humanities: Reconfiguring the Information Space.”
As part of the UbiQuity project (ITSERR), their presentation focused on disseminating research results in design for Digital Humanities, highlighting innovative approaches to visual communication and information design.

Summer School “Significanza culturale del patrimonio ecclesiastico”
2024-07-08 09:30 - 2024-07-13 17:00 | Palazzo Arcivescovile Lucca, Piazzale Mons. Giulio Arrigoni, 2, Lucca, Lucca, Italy
Within the framework of the Summer School “Significanza culturale del patrimonio ecclesiastico“, promoted by the Accademia Maria Luisa di Borbone, the Università LUMSA and the Arcidiocesi di Lucca, the researcher of the ITSERR project, Ilaria Sabbatini (University of palemro) will participate as invited professor and by presenting the following paper about our project: “I sistemi OCR per la trascrizione dei documenti antichi: l’esperienza di REVErse Regesta”
You can download the program here: Brochure Summer School 8-13 luglio

Worlds Above and Below: An interdisciplinary conference on Supernatural Worlds in Classics, Judaism, and Early Christianity
2024-07-09 - 2024-07-11 | University of Otago
Fabio Tutrone (University of Palermo) took part in the interdisciplinary conference Worlds Above and Below: Supernatural Worlds in Classics, Judaism, and Early Christianity, organized by the University of Otago.
He presented a talk titled “Augustine on Souls, Elements, and Demons: A Journey the Roman Cosmos to the Christian Paradise” exploring the transition from classical cosmology to Christian thought.
The conference brought together scholars from various disciplines to discuss supernatural beliefs in ancient traditions, providing a valuable platform for exchange and debate.

International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
2024-07-31 | Amsterdam
Anna Mambelli, ITSERR researcher (FSCIRE / University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), took part in the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), “Septuagint Studies” section, in Amsterdam. As part of the activities of WP8 uBIQUity, she contributed to the panel “WP8 ITSERR: Illuminating the uBIQUity of Sacred Texts Between the Ancient and Digital Worlds”, dedicated to the role of digital tools in the study of sacred texts and their reception. The presentation outlined the aims and the first achievements of uBIQUity, illustrating approaches and tools to identify and analyse quotations, allusions, and reuses of sacred texts between the ancient world and the digital environment.

IJCA 24_International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
2024-08-03 - 2024-08-09 | International Convention Center Jeju (ICC Jeju), 224 Jungmungwangwang-ro, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do, Jeju Island, Korea, Republic of
Vittorio Cuculo took part in IJCAI 2024 – International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, presenting the paper “Trends, Applications, and Challenges in Human Attention Modelling”. The contribution offers a considered overview of recent attempts to integrate human attention mechanisms into contemporary deep learning models, highlighting applications ranging from image and video processing to vision-and-language tasks and language modelling.

ACL 2024_Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
2024-08-11 - 2024-08-16 | Pathumwan Bangkok, 999/99 Rama 1 Road, Bangkok, Thailand
Our colleague, Davide Caffagni (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), presenting the paper “The Revolution of Multimodal Large Language Models: A Survey.”
Co-authored with Federico Cocchi, Luca Barsellotti, Nicholas Moratelli, Sara Sarto, Lorenzo Baraldi, Marcella Cornia and Rita Cucchiara (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), the paper explores the advancements and challenges of multimodal large language models, analyzing their impact on natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

16th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS 2024)
2024-08-30 - 2024-09-04 | Grand Hyatt Hotel Athens, 115, Syngrou Avenue, Athens, 11745, Greece
Within the framework of the prestigious 18th International conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2024) the 16th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS 2024) will be jointly held. Here, our colleagues Usman Nawaz, Liliana Lo Presti, Marianna Napolitano, and Marco La Cascia (ESFRI – RESILIENCE RI/PNRR ITSERR) will participate presenting the following paper:
“Automatic Lemmatization of Old Church Slavonic Language Using a Novel Dictionary-Based Approach”

18th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2024)
2024-08-30 - 2024-09-04 | Athens, Athens, Greece
Our colleague, Usman Nawaz (University of Palermo) participated in the 16th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS 2024), jointly held with the 18th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2024), presenting the paper “Automatic Lemmatization of Old Church Slavonic Language Using a Novel Dictionary-Based Approach.”
Co-authored with Liliana Lo Presti (University of Palermo), Marianna Napolitano (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) and Marco La Cascia (University of Palermo), the paper introduces an innovative dictionary-based method for automatic lemmatization of Old Church Slavonic, contributing to the advancement of historical linguistics and digital humanities.

XXXVII CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE DELL’AISG 2024 - NUOVI PERCORSI E TEMI DELLA RICERCA IN AMBITO GIUDAISTICO
2024-09-09 - 2024-09-10 | Università di Bologna – Dip. di Beni Culturali, Via degli Ariani 1, Ravenna, Italy
ITSERR took part in the Convegno Internazionale dell’AISG, entitled “Nuovi Percorsi e Temi della Ricerca in Ambito Giudaistico”.
During the conference, Andrea Ravasco (University of Palermo) presented the paper “Applicazione delle intelligenze artificiali allo studio del Talmud Babilonese”. The presentation is part of the research activities carried out within WP3 of the ITSERR project, which focuses on developing digital and AI-based methodologies for the study of religious sources.
Download the conference programme.

"Rotte Mediterranee. Migrazioni e ibridazioni nella letteratura italiana." XXVII Convegno Nazionale dell’Associazione degli Italianisti
2024-09-12 - 2024-09-14 | Università degli Studi di Palermo, Campus Unipa - Via delle Scienze, ed. 15, Palermo
The ADI (Associazione di Italianistica) National Conference was held in Palermo, during the event, Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo) presented his talk “L’immagine del ‘saraceno’ in alcune leggende mariane di prima età moderna (secc. XVI-XVIII).”
His research examines how Marian legends from the 16th to 18th centuries depicted the figure of the ‘Saracen,’ offering new perspectives on historical narratives and cultural perceptions in early modern Italy.

Seminario dottorale di Storia medievale
2024-09-16 | Università degli Studi di Messina
Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo) took part in the Seminario dottorale di Storia medievale at the University of Messina, where he presented his talk “Demoni, santi e tempeste sovrannaturali. Appunti per una storia culturale.”
His presentation focused on how believers sought saintly intercession to ensure favorable weather or ward off storms, while Vincenzo Tedesco examined the demonological perspective, interpreting the same events as manifestations of the devil’s influence. This dual approach sheds light on the evolving relationship between humans and nature over the centuries.

TPDL 2024 - International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries
2024-09-24 - 2024-09-27 | National and University Library of Slovenia (NUK), Ljubljana, Slovenia
Riccardo Amerigo Vigliermo (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 28th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2024), presenting the paper “Sensitive Topics Retrieval in Digital Libraries: A Case Study of ḥadīṯ Collections”.
Co-authored with Giovanni Sullutrone, Luca Sala, and Sonia Bergamaschi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), the study explores the reliability of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems in handling sensitive topics within digital libraries. By analyzing a ḥadīṯ dataset through an ad-hoc Question-Classify-Retrieve (QCR) framework, the research highlights potential biases in document retrieval and their impact on accessibility and knowledge dissemination.

AI4DH 2024_3rd International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Digital Humanities
2024-09-29 - 2024-10-04 | MiCo, Milan, Italy
Silvia Cascianelli and Giuseppe Cartella participated in the 3rd International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Digital Humanities (AI4DH).
Silvia Cascianelli presented the paper “µgat: Improving Single-Page Document Parsing by Providing Multi-Page Context”, co-authored with Fabio Quattrini, Carmine Zaccagnino, Laura Righi and Rita Cucchiara. The work focuses on regesta as visually rich, multi-page documents and extends recent document parsing architectures by incorporating information from neighbouring pages, in order to obtain more accurate, machine-readable representations of complex historical sources.
Giuseppe Cartella presented the paper “Pixels of Faith: Exploiting Visual Saliency to Detect Religious Image Manipulation”, co-authored with Vittorio Cuculo, Marcella Cornia, Marco Papasidero, Federico Ruozzi and Rita Cucchiara. The study addresses the challenge of detecting partially manipulated religious images using deep learning models enhanced by human-derived visual saliency maps and highlights a human-in-the-loop approach to improve fake detection systems, contributing to the preservation of religious and cultural content in the age of generative AI.
Both contributions are closely related to the research activities of the ITSERR project, which promotes the use of artificial intelligence for the analysis, structuring and safeguarding of textual and visual heritage.

ECCV 2024 – The 18th European Conference on Computer Vision
2024-10-01 - 2024-10-04 | MiCo, Milan, Italy
Federico Cocchi and Marcella Cornia (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 18th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2024), presenting the paper “Contrasting Deepfakes Diffusion via Contrastive Learning and Global-Local Similarities.”
The work introduces CoDE, a novel embedding space for deepfake detection that leverages contrastive learning and both global and local similarities to distinguish real images from those generated by diffusion models.

Annual Meeting on Christian Origins - Italian Centre for Advanced Studies on Religions
2024-10-04 09:00 - 11:00 | Centro Residenziale Universitario di Bertinoro, via Frangipane 6, Bertinoro, Forlì-Cesena, 47032, Italy
Within the framework of the Annual Meeting on Christian Origins our colleagues Anna Mambelli and Davide Dainese of ITSERR (Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE) participate with the following paper dedicated to the research leaded within the WP8:
“Resilient Septuagint and uBIQUity: Interrelated Research Projects on Sacred Texts and
their Heritages in the Digital World” – Anna Mambelli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Isabella Pignocco (University of Catania), Davide Dainese (University of Bologna), Laura Bigoni (University of Bologna).
Here the program of the Annual Meeting on Christian Origins: 1.CISSR Meeting 2024_Programme

Fourth Plenary Meeting of ITSERR: State of the Art of ITSERR project and Training on Distributional Semantics and Interoperability between Datasets
2024-10-23 09:00 - 2024-10-24 16:00 | Palazzo Corigliano Napoli, Piazza S. Domenico Maggiore 12, Napoli, Italy
ITSERR has organized its own fourth plenary meeting on the 23 and 24 of October to present the state of the art of the project and to offer to its team members a training program.
ITSERR is the Italian project aimed at enhancing the RESILIENCE Research Infrastructure, whose high interdisciplinarity is finalized to meet the evolving needs of the Religious Studies scientific community by enriching the diversity, the quality and innovation of the knowledge in this specific domain. The project is developed thanks to the collaboration between humanists (experts on History, Philology and Christian, Islamic and Jewish Studies) and IT engineers.
The venue of the meeting is the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies (DAAM), which is a partner of the Italian ITSERR Consortium.
The meeting involves more than 50 researchers, PhD students, Professors and technologists affiliated to the centres of the partnership (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, CNR, University of Turin, University of Palermo, University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
During the two days of work, besides their participation to the workshops and round tables, team members will present the state of advancement of each WP of the project and will attend master classes and trainings offered by Professor Alessandro Lenci (University of Pisa) distributional semantics and by Professor Franco Nicolucci (University of Florence) on the interoperability between datasets.
Here, you can find the program: Corsi di formazione ITSERR

Seminar "I santi internauti"
2024-11-07 | Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Santa Maria Capua Vetere
Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo) will speak at the seminar “Santi scrittori in digitale”, part of the permanent seminar series I Santi internauti. His talk, “Ildegarda spirituale: letture, riletture e reinterpretazioni della Sibilla del Reno sul Web”, will explore the digital reception and reinterpretation of Hildegard of Bingen’s spiritual legacy.

2024 MELA Annual Meeting - The Middle East Librarians Association
2024-11-07 - 2024-11-09 | Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford, CA, United States
Riccardo Amerigo Vigliermo (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 2024 Middle East Librarians Association (MELA) Annual Meeting, presenting the paper “The Digital Maktaba Project: Building an Intelligent System for Cataloguing
Non-Latin Script Heritages“.
The Digital Maktaba (DM) project, developed within ITSERR and funded by PNRR, focuses on AI-driven cataloguing and metadata extraction for multilingual, non-Latin script texts. Using OCR, NLP, and machine learning, it enhances the management and accessibility of cultural heritage collections, with a key test case being the “Giorgio La Pira“ library in Palermo.

The 2024 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
2024-11-12 - 2024-11-16 | Florida, Miami, United States
At EMNLP 2024, Sania Aftarha presented RoBERT2VecTM: A Novel Approach for Topic Extraction in Islamic Studies, co-authored by Luca Gagliardelli, Amina El Ganadi, Federico Ruozzi, and Sonia Bergamaschi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
The study introduces RoBERT2VecTM, combining RoBERTa and Doc2Vec to enhance topic modeling in Hadith studies. The approach improves semantic analysis, generating more coherent and diverse Arabic topics. The research also highlights the role of lemmatization and stopwords in refining results.
