DIGITAL RESOURCES FOR TEACHING

[Click here to jump to our crowd-sourced list of digital resources]

Many of us are suddenly facing the challenges of online teaching. We recognize that this shift can be disorienting, and we want to do what we can to offer support. So, we have compiled these resources in the hope that they help clarify the issues and provide useful information and guidance.

Below, you’ll find resources that encourage a positive attitude about online teaching, suggestions for how to communicate with students about the shift to online teaching, tips to help you adjust to the new teaching circumstances, and links that are particularly useful for teaching art history.

Here is a presentation that will help with the practicalities of online teaching.

Here is a link to a podcast called Twice Over, with conversations to inspire and reassure faculty grappling with the online environment. We particularly recommend season 1, episodes 5, 9, and 16, and season 2, episode 8.

Finally, we offer the following insight from Cathy Davidson (CUNY Grad Center), an excerpt from this blog post:

[We would do well to recognize that a] summer of planning for better online learning this [f]all will be wasted if we do not begin from the premise that our students are learning from a place of dislocation, anxiety, uncertainty, awareness of social injustice, anger, and trauma.

We recognize the tremendous possibilities opened up by remote teaching. But at the same time, it poses grave concerns of certain kinds, including issues of security, privacy, and safety, and could result in serious consequences for the participants depending on their nationality, residence, and even the topics under discussion. We recommend that faculty, students and administrators alike give careful consideration to this issue as cogently addressed by the Association of Asian Studies, keeping in mind that similar issues could arise in a number of regions in the world.

Thank you to everyone who sent us favorite resources. Is there a resource you would like to add to the list? Please email us your suggestions.

Explanation of Organization

The list of resources is organized in two ways. Click on any of the bold links to jump to that section.

The first list is organized by the following categories:

The second list has been organized by the following actions:

  • Search Sites that have brought together online medieval resources from many places

  • Consume Databases, Repositories, etc. that can be searched for content to be added to a (recorded) lecture or online platform

  • Interact Digital projects that can be interacted with online such as maps or data visualizations

  • Produce Digital tools that allow the user to produce digital content such as a virtual exhibition

Articles/Posts
Sarah Bond, “The Met Museum Just Made 375,000 Images Open Access--But Here Are A Few More Museums That Are #OA,” Forbes (February 8, 2017)
Monica Castillo, "Smithsonian Institution Releases 2.8 Million Images for Public Use," Hyperallegeric (Feb 26, 2020)
Peregrinations 6.2, Fall 2017: an issue “composed of a series of essays exploring the ways in which new technology is significantly changing the field of medieval art history”
Jessica Stewart, “14 Paris Museums Place 100,000 Works of Art Online for Free Download,” My Modern Met (January 15, 2020): see also the Related Articles at the bottom of the page

Databases & Images | Medieval Architecture
Archnet: an open access, intellectual resource focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, visual culture, and conservation issues related to the Muslim world
Ancient Athens 3-D: click the subpage on “Medieval Athens”
Black Monuments Matter: selected cultural heritage sites and monuments in sub-Saharan Africa
Creation of Gothic: images, panoramas, a thesaurus, and more information about 840 early Gothic churches in the Paris region
Crossing Frontiers: Christians and Muslims and their art in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus (present-day Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey)
Christ of Light Mosque, Toledo
Images of Rome: The Rodolfo Lanciani Digital Archive
Kingdom of Sicily Image Database
Material Speculation: ISIS (Morehshin Allahyari)
Mapping Eastern Europe
Mapping Gothic France (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
Notre-Dame of Paris, Panorama Tour (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of a Cathedral (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
University of Pittsburgh’s Images of monuments in England and France
Paris Past and Present
Romanesque Spain
Rome Reborn: see also its Catalog of Sculptures and Smarthistory’s video lecture using it
St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome: A Virtual Basilica
The Urban Legacy of Ancient Rome, Photographs from the Ernest Nash Fototeca Unione Collection
Wikimedia Commons
York Minster Stained Glass Navigator: a collection of high-res images of York Minster’s Great East Window and St Cuthbert Window panels
Zamani Project: documentation of more than 250 structures, rock art sites, and statues at 65 heritage sites in 18 countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia (University of Cape Town)

Databases & Images | Medieval Manuscripts
Digital Scriptorium
Dumbarton Oaks | Byzantine Collection: Manuscripts
e-Codices Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland
Les Enluminures (Book of Hours Tutorial)
Facsimile Finder: Giovanni Scorcioni Looking Through Facsimiles
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library Reading Room
Initiale: catalogue of medieval illuminated manuscripts in French public libraries other than the BnF
Liturgical Books: A basic guide to the Latin liturgy and its books
The Making of The Bible, Newberry Library
Harvard University Library’s Manuscript Resources collection
Monastic Manuscript Project
Morgan Library & Museum, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts
Polonsky Foundation Digitization Project: focus on Greek manuscripts, Hebrew manuscripts, and incunabula (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Bodleian Libraries)

Digital Projects
Closer to Van Eyck: images of the Ghent Altarpiece restoration in extremely high resolution
Crossing Frontiers: Christians and Muslims and their art in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus (present-day Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey)
Digital Mappa
Digital Pilgrims Project
Getty’s Legacy of Ancient Palmyra: see also some SketchFab models of destroyed monuments in Palmyra, as well as a cautionary note by Sarah Bond
The Gold Road Interactive Map highlights the people, places, and items related to the medieval Sudanic empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (Center for African Studies, Howard University)
Global Middle Ages
Imago Urbis: Giuseppe Vasi’s Grand Tour of Rome
Lancelot Project: images of manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail romance in French prose
The Lordship and Commune Project
Mapping Eastern Europe
Middle East Garden Traditions 
The Nolli Map (1748 Map of Rome)
The Notre-Dame Translation Project: English translations of essays about the history, stabilization, conservation, and restoration of Notre-Dame of Paris in the light of the 2019 fire
The Peutinger Map: digitized by Euratlas and Richard Talbert
Sentiments of Notre Dame
Digital Rolls and Fragments, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Dante's Primary Sources, Italian National Research Council
Visualizing Venice, Duke University, Università IUAV di Venezia, Università degli Studi di Padova
Mapping Manuscript Migrations

Museum Exhibition Websites & Virtual Exhibits
Ancient Color (Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan)
Armenia! (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art (Getty)
The Boxwood Project (Art Gallery of Ontario)
Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa (The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University)
The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Imaging the Divine (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)
Legacy of Ancient Palmyra (Getty) (see also some SketchFab models of destroyed monuments in Palmyra, as well as a cautionary note by Sarah Bond)
Liturgical Books: A basic guide to the Latin liturgy and its books (Columbia University)
Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders (Morgan Library & Museum)
Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Treasures of Heaven (Cleveland Museum of Art / Columbia University)
Peter Brathwaite, Rediscovering Black Portraiture

Videos
2 Byzantinists | A Byzantine Chalice at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
2 Byzantinists | Byzantine Griffin
2 Byzantinists | Byzantine Mosaic of a Personification, Ktisis
2 Byzantinists | Medieval Ivory Boxes: Myth and Luxury in the Middle Byzantine Period
2 Byzantinists | The Melisende Psalter: History and Context
2 Byzantinists | The Menas Flask: A Pilgrim’s Souvenir
2 Byzantinists | Plunder of the Fourth Crusade
2 Byzantinists | Sculpture and the Medieval Crusading Movement: The Column Capitals from Nazareth
2 Byzantinists | Woman with Scroll, An Early Byzantine Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Amiens Cathedral Choral Experience (Columbia University / Sorbonne University)
Hagia Sophia: The History of the Building and the Building in History (Dumbarton Oaks)
Hagia Sophia: Perspectives from Cultural Heritage (Cornell University)
History of a Medieval Masterpiece: The Lindau Gospels (The Morgan Museum & Library)
ICMA | Curating Becket
ICMA | The Guelph Treasure: Historic Significance and Legal Implications
ICMA | Notre-Dame of Paris: Past and Present
Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online | Short-Form Videos
Khamseen | Al-Aqmar Mosque
Khamseen | The Bobrinski Bucket
Khamseen | Contextualizing the Hünername (Book of Talents)
Khamseen | Dome of the Rock: Original Mosaics
Khamseen | The Egyptian Tentmakers and the Art of Khayamiya 
Khamseen | The Gwalior Qur'an
Khamseen | Islamic Arms and Armor: A Look at Dhu'l Fiqar, ‘Ali's Miraculous Sword
Khamseen | Islamic Art at the Walters Art Museum
Khamseen | The Khanqah of Baybar al-Jashinkir, 1306-1310
Khamseen | Mihrab at the Great Mosque of Córdoba
Khamseen | Ottoman Illustrated Histories
Khamseen | Qusayr ‘Amra, Baths of al-Walid
Khamseen | A Safavid Painting of the Prophet Muhammad's Mi‘raj
Khamseen | A Samanid Epigraphic Dish
Khamseen | Swahili Mosques Between Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean
Khamseen | Touching Mecca & Medina: The Dalā'il al-Khayrāt and Devotional Practices
Khamseen | Water and Sound in Islamic Architecture
The Lewis Chessmen (from “The Masterpieces of the British Museum Collection)
Making the Past Present: Meeting with Medieval Conques (Center for Early Medieval Studies, Brno)
Muslim Journeys | Item #219: Calligraphy
Muslim Journeys | Item #220: Mosques and Religious Architecture
Muslim Journeys | Item #221: The Arts of Trade and Travel
Muslim Journeys | Item #222: Islamic Gardens
Muslim Journeys | Item #223: Islamic Textiles
Muslim Journeys | Item #224: Geometry
Muslim Journeys | Item #225: The Arts of the Book and Miniature Painting
NOVA’s “Building the Great Cathedrals”
Open Arts Objects Archive
Open Arts Objects Archive, YouTube
Middle Ages for Educators (Princeton University)

Platforms for Producing Digital Projects in Art History Classrooms
ArtSteps
ARIES (Art Image Exploration Space)
Hypothesis
Omeka
Padlet
Storytelling Tools, Knight Lab, Northwestern University
Vialogues
VoiceThread
Voyant
Wix

Search
Archnet: a built environment of Muslim societies throughout time and across the world
Art History Teaching Resources
Brown’s Resources in Art and Architecture on the Web
Creation of Gothic: images, panoramas, a thesaurus, and more information about 840 early Gothic churches in the Paris region
College Art Association’s Resource Page
Digital Mappa
Digital Humanities and the Middle Ages
Digital Humanities Pedagogy Bibliography University of Virginia
Digital Islamic Art Resources
Global Middle Ages
Harvard's Compendium for Medieval Art & Architecture
Humanities in Class Digital Library (National Humanities Center)
Mapping Gothic: database of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and monumental sculpture in present-day France and England (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
Medieval Academy’s Digital Resources (MDR)
Musiconis: database of medieval musical imagery
Online Teaching and Medieval Studies Webinar (Medieval Academy of America)
Middle Ages for Educators (Princeton University)
Monastic Manuscript Project
Oxford Medieval Studies

Consume
Ashmolean's Imaging the Divine Exhibit
The Boxwood Project
Closer to Van Eyck: images of the Ghent Altarpiece restoration in extremely high resolution
Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Deutschland
Crossing Frontiers: Christians and Muslims and their art in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus (present-day Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey)
Digital Scriptorium
Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection 
Dumbarton Oaks Online Collection
e-Codices Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland
Harvard University Library’s Manuscript Resources collection
History of a Medieval Masterpiece: The Lindau Gospels (The Morgan Museum & Library)
Les Enluminures (Book of Hours Tutorial)
Facsimile Finder: Giovanni Scorcioni Looking Through Facsimiles
Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur (Image Archive Foto Marburg)
Getty Art
Getty’s Balthazar Exhibit: also valuable are the resources at the bottom of the page
Getty’s Legacy of Ancient Palmyra : see also some SketchFab models of destroyed monuments in Palmyra, as well as a cautionary note by Sarah Bond
The Gold Road Interactive Map highlights the people, places, and items related to the medieval Sudanic empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (Center for African Studies, Howard University)
Hagia Sophia: The History of the Building and the Building in History
Images of Rome: The Rodolfo Lanciani Digital Archive
The Index of Medieval Art
Kelsey Museum’s Ancient Color Exhibit
Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online
Kingdom of Sicily Image Database
Lancelot Project: images of manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail romance in French prose
The Lewis Chessmen (from “The Masterpieces of the British Museum Collection)
Liturgical Books: A basic guide to the Latin liturgy and its books
The Lordship and Commune Project
The Making of The Bible, Newberry Library
Medieval Mosaics
Mapping Gothic France: images, panoramas, and laser scans of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and portal sculpture in present-day France and England (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
Metropolitan Museum of Art Online Collections and Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
Middle East Garden Traditions 
Musiconis (Medieval Musical Iconography)
Muslim Journeys | Item #219: Calligraphy
Muslim Journeys | Item #220: Mosques and Religious Architecture
Muslim Journeys | Item #221: The Arts of Trade and Travel
Muslim Journeys | Item #222: Islamic Gardens
Muslim Journeys | Item #223: Islamic Textiles
Muslim Journeys | Item #224: Geometry
Muslim Journeys | Item #225: The Arts of the Book and Miniature Painting
Morgan Library & Museum, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts
The Notre-Dame Translation Project: English translations of essays about the history, stabilization, conservation, and restoration of Notre-Dame of Paris in the light of the 2019 fire
NOVA’s “Building the Great Cathedrals”
Open Arts Objects Archive
Open Arts Objects Archive, YouTube
Peter Brathwaite, Rediscovering Black Portraiture
University of Pittsburgh’s Images of monuments in England and France
The Urban Legacy of Ancient Rome, Photographs from the Ernest Nash Fototeca Unione Collection
Rose Window: “the very best for stained-glass images”
“Saving Notre-Dame,” on the National Geographic Channel
Scientists at the Service of Notre-Dame of Paris: English version of the Scientifiques de Notre-Dame website
Smarthistory
Warburg Institute Iconographic Database

Interact
Ancient Athens 3-D: click the subpage on “Medieval Athens”
Columbia University’s Digitization of Treasures of Heaven Exhibit
“Creation of Gothic”: 400+ panoramas, 24,000 photos of capital sculpture, detailed analysis of the Chartres portals, and more. A thesaurus of the sources for Early Gothic architecture; filters to explore the churches, their features, and graph the results. Explore carvers/modes in images and maps of their travels. Details (with construction history) of 840 churches in the Paris Basin before 1250
Christ of Light Mosque, Toledo
Crossing Frontiers: Christians and Muslims and their art in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus (present-day Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey)
Digital Pilgrims Project
Digital Rolls and Fragments, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Dante's Primary Sources, Italian National Research Council
The Gold Road Interactive Map highlights the people, places, and items related to the medieval Sudanic empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (Center for African Studies, Howard University)
Imago Urbis: Giuseppe Vasi’s Grand Tour of Rome
Mapping Eastern Europe
Mapping Manuscript Migrations
Mapping Gothic France: images, panoramas, and laser scans of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and portal sculpture in present-day France and England (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
Morehshin Allahyari’s Material Speculation: ISIS, 2015–16
The Nolli Map (1748 Map of Rome)
Notre-Dame of Paris, Panorama Tour (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of a Cathedral (Media Center for Art History, Columbia University)
Mapping Paintings
Middle Ages for Educators (Princeton University)
The Peutinger Map: digitized by Euratlas and Richard Talbert
Rome Reborn: see also its Catalog of Sculptures and Smarthistory’s video lecture using it
Sentiments of Notre Dame
St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome: A Virtual Basilica
The Syriac Reference Portal: Syriac literature, culture, and history
Visualizing Venice (Duke University, Università IUAV di Venezia, Università degli Studi di Padova)
York Minster Stained Glass Navigator: a collection of high-res images of York Minster’s Great East Window and St Cuthbert Window panels

Produce
ArtSteps
ARIES (Art Image Exploration Space)
Hypothesis
Omeka
Padlet
Storytelling Tools, Knight Lab, Northwestern University
VoiceThread
Vialogues
Voyant
Wix














“Sempronia displays her skill in rhetoric before three noblemen; dancing in a village square,” in Boccaccio’s Des cleres et nobles femmes, France, ca. 1450, fol. 49r

(New York: New York Public Library, MS Spencer 33)