Currently computer vision tooling is available in abundance. In this online lecture Jeroen Salman (CDH affiliated member) and guest speaker Giles Bergel (Oxford University) explore some of the tools that help early modern scholars to systematically analyse images in collections of pre-modern prints and illustrated books (engravings, etchings, woodcuts). To what extent can we answer fundamental questions about the materiality, iconography, functionality, dissemination and adaptation of these printed images?

Example of a penny print with bounding boxes from the early modern period.

Giles Bergel is senior researcher in digital humanities at the Visual Geometry Group at Oxford University. On his personal website he describes himself as academic book historian and digital humanist. He is equally interested in how texts came into existence in books, and in how digital culture is changing the nature of the book.

Jeroen Salman is assistant professor of Comparitive Literature at Utrecht University and affiliated member at the Centre for Digital Humanities. His main research interests include early modern book history, cultural history and the history of science and popular culture.