Information technology and culture: Vast database of Italian church’s art and artifacts goes live

The Roman Catholic Church has published a vast online catalogue of the Italian Catholic Church’s artistic heritage, said The Art Newspaper.

The work under the project to create an electronic system of object art heritage search has lasted for 16 years, but the system is far from perfection. The catalogue counts 3,5 million objects, but the items, stored in churches of some dioceses,  such as Florence and Naples, has yet to be add to the search system. Its creation is a joint project of the church and state, to which it was allocated 50 million Euros.

Users can search by artist, subject matter, object, diocese and date range and the search results can be filtered further if needed, but experts have pointed out a number of flaws in the system that suggest more work is needed.

Specialists note that the work on updating the catalogue will continue, it will include architecture monuments and archival materials.