According to Francis T. Marchese (2013: p.359), medieval visualization of an abstract notion of virtues and vices is the evidence of early attempts of visually representing and communicating complex knowledge using allegory. The author defines an allegory as a representational scheme purpose of which is a delivery of a story through the symbols that have both literal and figurative connotations. In our case, the abstract idea of virtues and vices is communicated via visual personification that surpasses the limitations of textual learning allowing the viewer to absorb the knowledge quicker. Ideas of virtues and vices originated in the moral philosophy writings of Classical Antiquity, initially with four virtues- prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance. The list of virtues increased to seven in early Christianity with the addition of faith, hope and charity. Vices, on the other hand, were first identified in their relations to virtues by early Christian scholar Evagrius Ponticus, who analyzed their psychosomatic and psychological phenomena. The seven virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, charity) and vices (pride, envy, idleness, sadness, avarice, gluttony, and lust) as we know them now were formally recognized as being of religious importance in the late 6th century by Pope Gregory I.

Throughout history, the concepts of virtues and vices have been visualized in various allegorical ways – as a ladder, a tree, and as women characters, all of which had a goal of guiding the faithful through the confrontation of virtues and vices in Man’s soul. The display of v&v as female figures dates to the ‘Psychomachia’ (soul battle), written by the Christian poet Prudentius in the late 4th century. It is assumed that Psychomachia paved the way for a new genre of religious literature and theatrical performances popular in the Middle Ages (Nugent: 2000, p.13-28). Women were often depicted with masculine characteristics, for example, being dressed in male battle armour, that aimed at conveying the spiritual struggle embodied by these figures. From the 9th century, they appear with symbolic items - for example, justice with a sword or a scale, temperance with a flame and fortitude with a shield. By the 16th century, however, very few artists referenced armoured female characters of Prudentius in their works. An exception to this was the Westphalian print-maker Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-1555), who created two series of engraved images 10x6 cm, one of virtues and one of vices, which Aldegrever chose to depict as allegorical figures of dynamic female warriors to convey the spiritual struggle, which is linked to the Psychomachia. His illustrations are full of symbols such as animals that suggest the reference to the heraldic tradition of his time, which would have been familiar to his intended audience. Each female figure is carrying a banner demonstrating either righteousness or immorality through the symbols. At the bottom of every image the artist put a sentence in Latin describing the virtue or vice. According to Marie Murphy (2017: p.1-15), Aldegrever’s works should not be seen as solely illustrative, but also as an instructive tool that helps the viewer to recall moral lessons of the religious texts “yet were able to stand independently of the source material”.

First of all, we would like to discuss allegorical visual representations of virtues and vices by Heinrich Aldegrever in the framework of the theory of signs to show that modelling has been utilised for centuries. Patrick Sahle (2018: p.183-193) begins his article by exploring ‘Model’ as a five-letter word highlighting the fact that words acquire their meaning when used in different contexts. Because the notion of ‘model’ is broadly used in fields from science to fashion, it makes it challenging to give it a formal definition. Here we will use two definitions of modelling, first being discussed by Claas Lattmann (2018:p.124-147), who pointed out the semiotic framework of Charles S. Peirce’s theory of signs, which proposes that models are a specific form of sign, namely icons, i.e. signs that are defined as being similar to what they represent. The article identifies three types of icon/model : “images,” “diagrams,” and “metaphors”. “Images” represent their objects by representing simple qualities of their objects by way of exhibiting equivalent simple qualities of their own, while “Metaphors” represent their objects by representing semiotic qualities of their objects by way of exhibiting equivalent semiotic qualities of their own. The engravings of Heinrich Aldegrever can therefore be seen as a mix of images and metaphors. It means that modelling as such has been used for centuries for communicating complex knowledge by using icons that stand for select properties of objects they represent.

Another instance of the model in our project is a diagrammatical representation of the evolvement of our ideas beginning with the notion of ‘Virtues and Vices’. As mentioned in the article “Modelling: Thinking in Practice. An Introduction” (2018: p.7-33), modelling can be considered a creative process of reasoning in which meaning is made and negotiated through the creation and manipulation of external representations. So creation of models in digital humanities can be seen as substitute for experimentation. The object of our model (virtues and vices) is what the object could potentially be, so experementation with potentiality leads to the reduction of possible interpretations of the object in question. In the framework of the theory of signs, diagrammatical model we used shows the properties of ‘virtues and vices’ to unwrap the objective nature of this notion.

For the diagrammatical model creation we used the ‘Miro’ software which you can see following the link: Miro representation. Our model is conceptual, meaning it is technology-independent representation, more similar to the way mind conceives reality, and contains formal and standarlized knowledge representation (ontologies) that helps to express the meaning of information (semantics) in order to render content on the web understandable for the user. It consists of entities, attributes and relations. Attributes describe properties of entities, while relations involve two entities.

We used ontologies of our model to create an example of an RDF triple. RDF is a standard for data interchange that is used for representing highly interconnected data and is the essential part of Linked Open Data protocol. Each RDF statement is a three-part structure consisting of subject, predicate and object. Each of part of the triple consisting of resources where every resource is identified by a URI (Universal Resource Identifier). Representing data in RDF allows information to be easily identified, disambiguated and interconnected by AI systems. The two datasets we used were DBPedia and Wikidata. The vocabulary we used is called FOAF (Friend of a friend), a project devoted to linking people and information using the Web.

Example of an RDF triple:

			
				@prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>.
				<https://dassoo.github.io//foafRDF.rdf> 
				a foaf Person;
				foaf: FirstName "Heinrich";
				foaf: LastName "Aldegrever".  
			
		

In order to visualize the series of virtues and vices by Heinrich Aldegrever we used the IIIF manifests available on the website of Art Institute of Chicago and National Gallery of Art.

The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) is a model containing a set of open standards for presenting and annotating digital media and ensure rich access to it. Since images are data they can be described with metadata (data about data). With the use of web standarts and protocols such as Json, Web Annotation, Presentation API, IIIF provides information necessary for transmission of cultural knowledge, share of digital image data, migration across technology systems and enhanced online viewing environment.

For the image delivery we embedded a Mirador software which is open-source, web based viewing platform with the ability to zoom, display, compare and annotate images. IIIF manifests used in this project carries information needed for the Mirador viewer to present digitised conent to the user, such as a title and other discriptive information about the object.

We included the analysis of symbols of Chastity, Lust, Patience, Wrath, Modesty and Pride depicted by Aldegrever based on the research of Marie Murphy. This analysis provides an insight into the allegorical references used by the artist that aimed at appealing to viewers perception of sin and holiness. Therefore, the user has a possibility to learn the meaning of symbols and explore their visual represenation with the use of Mirador.

• Ciula, A., Eide, Ø., Marras, C., Sahle,P., (2018), “Modelling: Thinking in Practice. An Introduction”, HSR Supplement, p.7-33
• Lattmann, C. (2018), “Iconizing the Digital Humanities. Models and Modeling from a Semiotic Perspective”, HSR Supplement, p.124-147
• Marchese, F.T., (2013), “Virtues and Vices: Examples of Medieval Knowledge Visualization”, 17th International Conference on Information Visualisation, p. 359-364
• Murphy, J.M., (2017), “Allegory and interpretation in Heinrich Aldegrever's series virtues and vices”. Available here
• Nugent, S.G., (2000), “Virtus or Virago? The Female Personifications of Prudentius’ Psychomachia,” in Virtue & Vice: The Personifications in the Index of Christian Art., Vol. 1, ed. Colum Hourihane, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 13-28
• Sahle, P., (2018), “How to Recognize a Model When You See One. Or: Claudia Schiffer and the Climate Change”, HSR Supplement, p.183-193