Seminar La “Guida spirituale” di Miguel de Molinos tra Palermo e Siviglia
2025-03-31 | Campus UniPa Ed. 16 aula D3, Viale delle Scienze, Palermo
The Department of Cultures and Society at the University of Palermo recently hosted two seminars led by Prof. Pedro Ramirez Rueda (University of Barcelona), the first scholar to visit the University of Palermo with a TNA grant as part of the ITSERR project.
The first seminar focused on Miguel de Molinos’ Spiritual Guide and its connections between Palermo and Seville, shedding light on the historical and intellectual ties between these two cities. Professor Rueda provided an in-depth analysis of Molinos’ work, examining its influence on religious thought and its significance within the broader European intellectual landscape.
The second seminar, titled “From the Old to the New World: Circulation and Consumption of Printed Books between Europe and Latin America (16th-17th centuries)”, explored the movement of printed materials across the Atlantic, highlighting the dynamics of book circulation and readership between Europe and Latin America during the early modern period.
Both events attracted a diverse audience of scholars, students, and researchers interested in early modern spirituality, book history, and historical cultural exchanges.

6° ITSERR TRAINING IN-HOUSE
2025-04-10 - 2025-04-11 | ISTI CNR, G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa
On April 10–11, 2025, the ITSERR project hosted its sixth in-house training event at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies “A. Faedo” (ISTI-CNR) in Pisa. The two-day meeting brought together project members and international experts for updates on the state of the project and advanced training on key topics at the intersection of Digital Humanities and Religious Studies.
The programme included sessions on manuscript cataloguing in the digital age, automated methods and data conversion, Natural Language Processing for Latin, and the codification of material culture and religious practices. These sessions were led by scholars from leading institutions and fostered in-depth discussion on methodologies and tools for enhancing access to cultural and religious heritage.
This training marked an important milestone in ITSERR’s mission to strengthen the European research infrastructure RESILIENCE through digital innovation and international collaboration.
See the full Programme

Seminar "Arabic Multimodal Language Modeling"
2025-05-14 11:00 - 12:00 (Europe/Brussels) | ISTI CNR, G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa
On May 14, the Faedo Lecture Hall at ISTI-CNR will host the seminar “Arabic Multimodal Language Modeling”, presented by Hawau Olamide Toyin, a PhD student in Natural Language Processing at the Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI).
Hawau Olamide Toyin is a visiting scholar at ISTI-CNR thanks to a TNA (Transnational Access) grant, awarded within the framework of ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of ESFRI RI Resilience, a project funded by the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Her research stay is part of the international mobility initiatives aimed at promoting access to cutting-edge research infrastructures in the field of humanities and social sciences.
During the seminar, she will present ArTST, a pre-trained transformer model for Arabic speech and text, which extends the unified SpeechT5 architecture originally developed for English. ArTST enables joint learning of speech and text representations and can be fine-tuned for a variety of tasks, including speech recognition, speech synthesis, speech enhancement, speaker identification, and dialect classification.
The seminar also addresses a key research question: Can a single model be trained to handle multiple cross-modal speech-text tasks? The results obtained so far—both in high-resource (English) and low-resource (Arabic) settings—are promising.
This seminar is part of the ITSERR research activities in artificial intelligence, language technologies, and digital infrastructures for the humanities.
Remote access link.

Seminar “Online Social Dynamics. Between Fake News and Historical Interpretation”
2025-05-16 12:00 - 14:00 | Università degli Studi di Palermo, Campus Unipa - Via delle Scienze, ed. 15, Palermo
As part of the activities of the Laboratory of Bibliography and Online Historical Research, the Master’s Degree Programme in Historical, Anthropological and Geographical Studies, and the ITSERR Research Project, a seminar will be held by Walter Quattrociocchi (University of Rome “La Sapienza”) on the topic: Online Social Dynamics. Between Fake News and Historical Interpretation.
The seminar will address the circulation of disinformation in digital environments and the challenges it poses to historical interpretation and critical thinking.
Speakers will include Rosella Cancila (University of Palermo), Coordinator of the Master’s Programme, and Fabrizio D’Avenia (University of Palermo), Scientific Coordinator of the ITSERR Project.The seminar will be introduced by Ilaria Sabbatini (University of Palermo), course instructor of the Laboratory.
The event will also be accessible online.
presso l’Aula 3.3 dell’Edificio 14 al Campus di viale delle Scienze,

Seminario "Interrogare o ordinare il caos? Testi, biblioteche, archivi nell’era dell’AI"
2025-05-19 09:00 - 13:30 | University of Bologna, Piazza San Giovanni in Monte 2, Bologna, Italy
An opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange on the role of artificial intelligence in the study of texts, libraries, and archives. The seminar brings together scholars working in the fields of Digital Humanities, philosophy of language, and history of ideas. With a focus on the activities of uBIQUity – WP8 of the PNRR ITSERR project, the event aims to explore both theoretical and experimental perspectives related to semiotic processes, creativity, and the digital transformation of textual heritage.
The morning will alternate between presentations and open discussions, with the participation of researchers from various Italian and international institutions.

AI and Religious Studies: New Perspectives and Applications for the Study of the Talmud Bavli and the Corpus Iuris Canonici
2025-06-10 09:30 - 23:30 | Fondazione per le scienze religiose, Via San Vitale 114, Bologna
As part of the National Open Access (NOA) mobility program of the ITSERR project, the seminar titled “AI and Religious Studies: New Perspectives and Applications for the Study of Talmud Bavli and the Corpus Iuris Canonici” will be held on 10 June 2025 at FSCIRE – Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, in Bologna.
The event will be introduced and chaired by Federico Alpi (FSCIRE – University of Florence) and will feature presentations by Arianna Pavone, Andrea Ravasco, and Vincenzo Roberto Imperia (University of Palermo), who will present the preliminary results of the research project carried out within the ITSERR framework.
The research group has developed GNORM, an experimental software for the automatic analysis and categorization of printed religious normative sources, using data mining techniques and 3D visualization.
The study focuses on two key normative texts from the religious tradition: the Corpus Iuris Canonici and the Babylonian Talmud, opening up new avenues of research through the integration of religious studies and digital technologies.

SINT4CH 2025 - 1st International Workshop on Spatial Intelligence for Cultural Heritage
2025-06-12 | Music City Center, Nashville, United States
Giuseppe Cartella, ITSERR researcher, presented the paper “Sanctuaria-Gaze: A Multimodal Egocentric Dataset for Human Attention Analysis in Religious Sites” at SINT4CH 2025 – 1st International Workshop on Spatial Intelligence for Cultural Heritage. The paper, developed as part of ITSERR research activities, introduces Sanctuaria-Gaze, a multimodal dataset of egocentric visits to four sanctuaries in Northern Italy, collected with wearable eye-tracking devices and paired with an open-source framework for automatic detection and analysis of Areas of Interest (AOIs). The study investigates how visitors visually engage with sacred, architectural, and cultural elements in real-world settings, and how their individual backgrounds shape these gaze patterns.

7th ITSERR In-house Training on Open Access and Analysis Models for Religious Studies
2025-06-12 - 2025-06-13 | Dipartimento di Ingegneria “Enzo Ferrari” UniMORE, Via P. Vivarelli, 10, Modena
On June 12–13, the “Enzo Ferrari” Department of Engineering at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia will host the seventh in-house training of the PNRR-funded ITSERR project – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE. This training event will offer a moment of shared learning and dialogue, focusing on the results achieved in the final phase of the project and the outlook for the future.
The programme, delivered in hybrid mode, includes seminar-style lectures and presentations of project results, designed to reflect on the achievements and future directions of ITSERR.
The opening session will feature institutional greetings from Prof. Francesco Leali, Director of the “E. Ferrari” Department of Engineering, Prof. Emerita Sonia Bergamaschi, and Prof. RitamCucchiara, Professor of Computer Engineering at UniMORE.
Key contributions will include talks by Prof. Carlo Bianchini (University of Pavia) on Linked Open Data for research, Dr. Fabrizio Sebastiani (CNR-ISTI Pisa) on experimental content analysis models, and Prof. Sonia Bergamaschi with her team, who will present preliminary results and future prospects of the Digital Maktaba project.
The event marks an important moment of reflection and relaunch, aimed at strengthening the connection between Religious Studies and technological innovation, and at consolidating cooperation among project partners.
Programma ITSERR 7th TIH Modena 12 e 13 giugno 2025

International Medieval Congress (IMC) 2025
2025-07-07 - 2025-07-10 | University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Amina El Ganadi (University of Palermo, FSCIRE), member of the research team of the ITSERR project, presented the paper “Divine Diplomacy: Religion and Power in Mongol-Muslim Relations during the Yuan Dynasty” at the International Medieval Conference (IMC) 2025.
She also co-organised and chaired the panel “The Rebirth of Culture under the Mongols: From the Persian World to Yuan China”.
For more information, see the IMC 2025 website.

ITSERR at #EuARe2025: Panel on Digital Tools and Technologies for the Study of Religions
2025-07-09 | University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE – will take part in the European Academy of Religion annual conference (#EuARe2025) in Vienna with the panel:
Technology and the Transformation of Scholarship: Software and Tools for the Study of Religions
The panel will present the outcomes of ITSERR’s interdisciplinary work in Religious Studies and Information Technologies. It will explore how digital tools and new technologies are transforming the study of religion, responding to the needs of scholars across disciplines and research traditions.
The panel includes an introduction and four thematic sessions:

Digital Humanities and non-Latin scripts
Understanding the meaning, identifying the tool
(Re)Composing datasets
Artificial Intelligence and Religious Studies

The initiative reflects ITSERR’s mission to support research innovation in the study of religions through cutting-edge digital infrastructure.
📄 View the full panel programme

#EUARE2025
2025-07-09 - 2025-07-10 | University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
ITSERR took part in the European Academy of Religion annual conference (#EuARe2025) held in Vienna, contributing with two panels dedicated to methodological and technological developments in Religious Studies.
The panel “Technology and the Transformation of Scholarship: Software and Tools for the Study of Religions”, proposed and chaired by Francesca Cadeddu, brought together S. Aftar, I. Ali, C. Palillo, M. Costa, A. El Ganadi, G. Ferrandino, F. Iezzi, A. Mariani, M. Napolitano, I. Panzeca, G. Puccetti, F. Ruozzi, E. Scapini, S. Shahnawaz, I. Spanò and L. Timpers. Speakers presented research results developed within ITSERR, discussing how digital tools, new datasets and artificial intelligence are reshaping methods, sources and research questions in Religious Studies, also in relation to the development of new research resources and practices.
The panel “New Perspectives in the Research on Intertextuality”, proposed by D. Dainese and A. Mambelli and chaired by L. Bigoni, brought together S. Abram, L. Carnevale, L. Cerioni, R. Fedriga, G. Hermanin De Reichenfeld, C. Marras, L. Mellerin, A. Rotondo and M. Zanella. Contributions presented ITSERR research on intertextuality, with particular attention to ancient works and the processes of textual transmission and interpretation.
The two panels highlighted ITSERR’s role in fostering innovation in Religious Studies through the development of tools and resources and the advancement of methodological approaches.
For more information, see the conference programme.

Slavic NLP 2025 – The 10th Workshop on Slavic Natural Language Processing
2025-07-31 | Austria Center Vienna, Vienna, Austria
ITSERR, took part in the 10th Workshop on Slavic Natural Language Processing, held in Vienna, with a contribution on the diachronic analysis of Church Slavonic. Maria Cassese presented the paper “DIACU: A dataset for the DIAchronic analysis of Church Slavonic”, co‑authored by Maria Cassese, Giovanni Puccetti, Marianna Napolitano and Andrea Esuli, which introduces DIACU, a new large‑scale dataset that aggregates and annotates 652 texts from different historical variants of Church Slavonic and related Slavic languages to support both linguistic research and machine‑learning approaches to temporal and regional attribution. For more information, see the workshop programme.

Oxford Summer School 2025
2025-08-08 | St Anne’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Amina El Ganadi, ITSERR researcher, presented the paper “Reimagining Islamic Knowledge Classification: Evaluating Culturally Adaptive LLMs for Arabic-Script Libraries” at The Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School 2025. Her contribution examined how ChatGPT can support the categorisation of an Islamic digital library by leveraging incremental Machine Learning and Transfer Learning techniques, highlighting the model’s notable familiarity with Islamic knowledge and its ability to organise subjects hierarchically, from Qur’anic Studies to Modern Islamic Thought. At the same time, the paper discussed key challenges that emerged in this context – in particular issues of interpretability, generalisation, and hallucination – which remain crucial obstacles for the reliable use of large language models in Arabic-script library environments.

25th Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT)
2025-08-11 08:00 - 2025-08-15 17:00 | Humboldt-University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Anna Mambelli took part in the 25th Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT), held in Berlin, presenting the paper “The uBIQUity of Sacred Texts between Past and Future: Methodological Challenges and New Tools”.
The paper introduced the uBIQUity project, developed within ITSERR, which investigates the sacred texts of Christianity and Islam through large corpora of Greek, Latin and Arabic sources. By integrating computer science and the humanities, the project aims to develop tools capable of identifying biblical and Qur’anic quotations and allusions in later traditions.
For more information, see the conference programme.

IEEE 2025_International Conference on Cyber Humanities
2025-09-08 08:00 - 2025-09-10 17:00 | Fondazione CR Firenze Innovation Center, Lungarno Soderini, 21, Firenze, Italy
ITSERR took part in the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Humanities, in Florence, with the paper “ReCoptic: Computer Vision for the Reconstruction of Dismembered Coptic Codices”, presented by Fabrizio Sebastiani, scientific coordinator of the ITSERR project and co‑authored with Lorenzo Bianchi, Fabrizio Falchi, Alejandro Moreo and Costanza Bianchi.
The contribution applies advanced computer vision techniques to the reconstruction of dismembered Coptic codices, opening up new possibilities for the study and preservation of ancient manuscripts and demonstrating the potential of AI‑based methods for Digital Humanities and manuscript studies. At IEEE CH 2025, “ReCoptic: Computer Vision for the Reconstruction of Dismembered Coptic Codices” received the Best Research Paper Award, an international recognition that highlights the excellence of ITSERR researchers in the fields of Digital Humanities, artificial intelligence and interdisciplinary research on cultural heritage.
For more information, see the workshop programme.

Summer School “AI for Religious Studies: Unlocking Knowledge”
2025-09-08 08:00 - 2025-09-12 17:00 | Università degli Studi di Palermo e Biblioteca e Centro di ricerca “Giorgio La Pira”, PALERMO, PALERMO (PA)
The PNRR ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project promotes, from 8 to 12 September 2025, the Summer School AI for Religious Studies: Unlocking Knowledge, designed for the doctoral students of the DREST – National PhD Program in Religious Studies, and hosted by the “Giorgio La Pira” Research Library (FSCIRE) and the University of Palermo.
The Summer School is a key moment for ITSERR: an opportunity to showcase and test the potential of the digital tools and services developed by the project, while fostering interdisciplinary dialogue on religious studies in the era of Digital Humanities.
View the detailed: Programma Summer School
📩For information and organizational details: summerschoolitserr2025@itserr.it

Seminar "Forme ed espressioni dell'aristotelismo nella tradizione araba"
2025-09-11 08:00 - 2025-09-12 17:00 | Biblioteca La Pira – Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, Via degli Schioppettieri, 25, Palermo
ITSERR researcher Ivana Panzeca (University of Palermo) took part in the seminar “Forme ed espressioni dell’aristotelismo nella tradizione araba”, held at the Giorgio La Pira Library and Research Centre of the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose in Palermo. The two‑day event, organised in collaboration with the Master’s degree programme Religioni e Culture (LM‑64) and the Department of Culture and Society of the University of Palermo, brought together scholars including Jawdath Jabbour, Cristina Cerami, Silvia Di Vincenzo, Rosanna Budelli, Francesca Badini and Stefano Di Pietrantonio to explore how Aristotelian thought was interpreted and transmitted in the medieval Arab‑Islamic world; Panzeca chaired the opening session and presented her research on the Arab‑Persian translations of Aristotle’s De Anima and their pseudoepigraphic tradition.
See the full programme.

8th ITSERR Training in-house “AI for Religious Studies: Unlocking Knowledge”
2025-09-11 08:00 - 2025-09-12 18:30 | Università degli Studi di Palermo, Campus Unipa - Via delle Scienze, ed. 15, Palermo
On 11–12 September 2025, the event will take place at the Complesso Monumentale dello Steri of the University of Palermo.
The ITSERR project, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) with resources from NextGenerationEU, enhances the European Research Infrastructure RESILIENCE by developing innovative digital tools and services for Religious Studies. During the event, it will showcase how research infrastructures can advance the study and understanding of religions in Europe through digital technologies and AI.
The conference, titled “ITSERR: A Project of Technological and Digital Innovation for Religious Studies,” opens on 11 September with institutional greetings and continues with sessions presenting ITSERR’s scientific results, including a keynote lecture by Alberto Melloni, with participation from international institutions and stakeholders, such as Barbara McGillivray from King’s College London, Eric Atwell from Leeds University, and Valentina Vavassori from the British Library.
Friday, 12 September, will be dedicated to workshops and hands-on training sessions led by national and international experts in the fields of Digital Humanities and Religious Studies.
All project partners – the National Research Council, University of Turin, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and University of Naples “L’Orientale” – will join, alongside directors of European research infrastructures in the humanities and RESILIENCE member research centres.
View the detailed: Programma TIH ITSERR. Un progetto d’innovazione tecnologica e digitale per le Scienze religiose
For further information: summerschoolitserr2025@itserr.it
Read here the English translation of the lecture: Prof. Melloni’s Lecture

Seminar – From Classics to Circuits: Building and Explaining Multilingual Language Models
2025-09-19 10:00 - 12:00 | ISTI – Area della Ricerca CNR, Via G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa
On 19 September 2025, the Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa will host a seminar by Friederick Riemenschneider (University of Heidelberg), currently in Pisa as a visiting scholar under a Transnational Access (TNA) grant within the ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project.
The seminar will explore how multilingual language models generalize across languages. Starting from a purpose-built trilingual model zoo (Ancient Greek, Latin, English), the discussion will extend to large-scale models such as BLOOM, offering valuable insights for multilingual and historical language research. By bridging Classics and AI, the talk will highlight new perspectives at the intersection of the humanities and computational linguistics.
Referent: Giovanni Puccetti
Remote participation is available at the following link

TPDL 2025_International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries
2025-09-23 - 2025-09-26 | Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
From 23 to 26 September 2025, Davide Caffagni (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), researcher in the ITSERR project, took part in the 29th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2025) in Tampere, Finland.
He presented the paper “Generating Synthetic Data with Large Language Models for Low-Resource Sentence Retrieval”, which investigates the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance sentence similarity search in low-resource domains such as ancient texts.
The study is part of WP8 of the ITSERR project and collects the most recent results from the research activities carried out within WP8.
Download the conference programme.

uBIQUity at the 11th CISSR Annual Meeting
2025-09-25 | University Residential Centre of Bertinoro, Via Frangipane, 6, Bertinoro, Forlì-Cesena
uBIQUity (ITSERR WP8) presented at the 11th CISSR – Annual Meeting on Christian Origins in Bertinoro, within the session Jewish History, Hellenistic Judaism, and Septuagint Studies, co-directed by Anna Mambelli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia / FSCIRE), scientific coordinator and product owner of the project.
The paper, entitled “Scriptural Continuities in the Alexandrian Tradition: A Computational Approach to the Septuagint in Philo and Clement”, was delivered by Laura Bigoni (University of Bologna) and Isabella Pignocco (University of Bari).
The presentation highlighted how uBIQUity provides innovative tools to investigate the Septuagint and its quotations in the Alexandrian tradition, with special reference to the textual heritage of Philo of Alexandria and Clement of Alexandria, and on the interplay between Judaism and early Christianity. This work also benefits from the classification of witnesses developed within the PRIN project “Resilient Septuagint”, directed by Davide Dainese (University of Bologna).

DIALOGHI CON LA STORIA DEL DIRITTO
2025-09-25 10:00 | Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza – Università degli Studi di Palermo, Piazza Bologni, 8, Palermo
On 25th September 2025, the Department of Law at the University of Palermo will host the event “DIALOGHI CON LA STORIA DEL DIRITTO”
The program will open with contributions from Prof. Beatrice Pasciuta and Prof. Fabrizio D’Avenia (University of Palermo), followed by a lecture by Dr. Ignazio Alessi (University of Cambridge) entitled “Medieval Papal Legates and Normative Authority: a Digital Approach to the Corpus Iuris Canonici.”
The event will conclude with a roundtable discussion featuring Dr. Alessi and Dr. Vincenzo Roberto Imperia and Dr. Arianna Pavone (University of Palermo), researchers within the ITSERR project.
The presence of Dr. Ignazio Alessi in Palermo is made possible by a Transnational Access (TNA) grant, within the framework of the ITSERR project. His research combines historical expertise with digital tools, offering innovative perspectives on the study of medieval canon law.

International Conference "Pathways of Texts: From Ancient Traditions to New Computational Frontiers. Bibles, Libraries, Webs of Books"
2025-10-09 08:00 - 2025-10-10 17:00 | Monastero dei Benedettini San Nicolò l’Arena, Piazza Dante, 32, Catania, Italy
ITSERR project researchers participated in the international conference “Pathways of Texts: From Ancient Traditions to New Computational Frontiers. Bibles, Libraries, Webs of Books”. Anna Mambelli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia/FSCIRE) and Laura Bigoni (University of Bologna/FSCIRE) presented “The uBIQUity and Resilience of Scriptures and their Heritage”. Sara Abram (University of Palermo) presented “Ubiquitous Ḥadīths in Islamic Scriptures”.
Download the programme.

Workshop: The Dānešnāme and its (structural) aftermath
2025-10-15 08:00 - 2025-10-17 17:00 | Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
ITSERR researcher Ivana Panzeca (University of Palermo), took part in the International Conference “The Dānešnāme and its (Structural) Aftermath” at KU Leuven, presenting the paper “Discovering and mapping the manuscripts of Dānešnāme-ye ʿAlāʾī”. Her contribution focused on the identification and mapping of the manuscript tradition of Avicenna’s Persian Dānešnāme-ye ʿAlāʾī, shedding light on the transmission and dissemination of this work across time and space.
View full programme.

44th Course of the International School of Ius Commune
2025-10-19 08:00 - 2025-10-23 17:00
The 44th Course of the International School of Ius Commune, held in Erice, Sicily, and dedicated to “Legal, cultural and religious pluralism: aspects and problems in the tradition of the ‘ius commune” hosted a contribution from ITSERR.
ITSERR researcher Roberto Imperia (University of Palermo), presented his latest study, “Il ‘Corpus Iuris Canonici’ nell’età digitale: anticipazioni sul software di ricerca GNORM.” Developed within the ITSERR project, GNORM is one of the digital tools designed to support historical and religious studies, offering new ways to explore and analyse the Corpus Iuris Canonici, a foundational legal corpus of the European Middle Ages.
The course was organised by the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture as part of the long-standing International School of Ius Commune.
🔗 The programme

ICCV 2025_International Conference on Computer Vision
2025-10-22 | Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu, HI, United States
Giuseppe Cartella, Vittorio Cuculo and Marcella Cornia took part in the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) presenting the paper “Modeling Human Gaze Behavior with Diffusion Models for Unified Scanpath Prediction” (co‑authored by Giuseppe Cartella, Vittorio Cuculo, Alessandro D’Amelio, Marcella Cornia, Giuseppe Boccignone and Rita Cucchiara). The work introduces ScanDiff, a model that combines diffusion models and Vision Transformers to generate more diverse and realistic gaze trajectories, advancing the state of the art in human scanpath prediction.
For more information, see the programme.

Conferenza: "AI and Digital Humanities. Methodological Approaches, Theories and Methods"
2025-11-04 08:00 - 2025-11-05 17:00 | Università di Siena, via Banchi di Sotto, 55, Siena, Italy
Laura Righi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) and Riccardo Amerigo Vigliermo (Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose – FSCIRE), researchers in the ITSERR project, took part in the international conference “AI and Digital Humanities: Methodological Approaches, Theories and Methods”, held at the University of Siena. Within the panel “AI for Document Enhancement and Use” (chair Enrica Salvatori), they presented the paper “Cataloguing, Indexing and Summarise. AI between medieval Latin scrolls and digital books in Arabic script”, focused on the use of artificial intelligence to describe, index and enhance documentary materials ranging from medieval Latin scrolls to digital books in Arabic script.
See the full programme.

2025-11-04 08:00 - 2025-11-09 17:00 | Suzhou International Expo Centre, Suzhou, China
ITSERR researcher Amina El Ganadi (University of Palermo, FSCIRE) took part in the Arabic NLP workshop co-located with the Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2025) conference in Suzhou, China.

IQSA 2025 Annual Meeting
2025-11-13 - 2025-11-16 | Loyola Marymount University, 1 Loyola Marymount University Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90045, United States
Amina El Ganadi (FSCIRE, Bologna / University of Palermo / University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), member of the research team of the ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project, presented the paper “Hallucinating tafsīr? Evaluating LLM QA on al-Ṭabarī’s Texts” at the IQSA 2025 Annual Meeting (International Qur’anic Studies Association).
Her contribution explores the potential and limitations of large language models in engaging with classical Islamic exegesis, evaluating their performance on al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr on Sūrat Yūsuf and highlighting, in particular, cases of accurate answers versus hallucinations, that is, content not supported by the source text. For more information about the conference, please refer to the IQSA website and the page dedicated to the 2025 Annual Meeting.
For further details, see here.

Seminar "Documentazione pontificia e strumenti digitali: i primi risultati del progetto ITSERR attraverso il caso del divieto di usura”
2025-11-17 11:00 - 12:30 | Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Polo delle Scienze Umane e sociali, Via Santa Croce, 77, Trento, Trento, Italy
ITSERR researcher Laura Righi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) took part in the seminar “Documentazione pontificia e strumenti digitali: i primi risultati del progetto ITSERR attraverso il caso del divieto di usura”, within the “Tavola ovale di storia moderna” series organised by FBK‑ISIG. Her presentation illustrated research carried out in the framework of the ITSERR project, which uses digital tools to analyse the thirteenth‑century papal correspondence on the prohibition of usury, systematically examining letters from Alexander III to Honorius IV to map cases of usury, types of intervention by the Roman curia and the networks connecting papacy, local authorities and communities.
See the full programme.
