Screnim: a Project to Conduct a Census of Early Modern Prison Graffiti as Historical Sources to Preserve and Enhance

This paper presents the project Screnim: The dream of freedom. Writing in confinement in Early Modern Italy (15th-19th centuries), whose main aim is to conduct a census of prison graffiti from the Italian peninsula during the early modern era (15th-19th centuries), which will then be transferred into a public database. This tool will gather detailed information on the content (textual, iconographic, linguistic, geographical, etc.) of the graffiti and many of their images (both original and photo-enhanced, to improve the visibility of the inscriptions). The underlying idea is to provide scholars with digital access to firsthand historical sources that are abundant, highly informative, and, despite being underutilized, lend themselves to various types of comparative and multidisciplinary research. These sources, however, often remain unattainable and highly perishable. This paper therefore explains not only the objectives of the project, but also the types of information collected and the methods used to enhance the photographic images of the graffiti, showing some of the research opportunities and suggesting potential future developments.