Abstract
This talk explores the integration and semantic modeling of medieval legal manuscript data from two major collections: Progetto Irnerio and Mosaico. Progetto Irnerio is a fundamental part of the history of the University of Bologna, particularly its Law School. It reflects the foundations of modern legal thought that emerged during the medieval era. The Mosaico project provides high-resolution access to a large database of legal manuscripts and scholarly metadata. This research addresses modeling challenges such as metadata inconsistency, fragmented descriptions, and the lack of standardized schemas through the development of the Medieval Manuscript Data Integration Ontology (MMDIO) and a polymorphic knowledge graph, designed to support semantic exploration, faceted search, and visualization. Furthermore, MELIORATE, a Linked Open Data platform, was developed to enable scholars from diverse disciplines to access, explore, and collaborate around manuscript data in more dynamic and integrated ways. The project contributes to digital preservation, enhances interoperability, and bridges the fields of cultural heritage, digital humanities, computer science, and legal history.
Bio
Faria Ferooz recently completed her PhD in the Law, Science, and Technology Joint Doctorate (LAST-JD) program, under the supervision of Prof. Monica Palmirani at the University of Bologna and Prof. Christoph Schommer at the University of Luxembourg (Department of Computer Science). Her research focused on modeling and integrating heterogeneous medieval legal manuscript data using semantic web technologies. She developed the Medieval Manuscript Data Integration Ontology (MMDIO), a polymorphic knowledge graph, and the MELIORATE platform to improve access and interoperability of major collections such as Mosaico and Progetto Irnerio. Her work bridges legal history and computer science, with a focus on ontology engineering and Linked Open Data for digital humanities and cultural heritage. She is currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at Alma AI, the Interdepartmental Center for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, where she explores neuro-symbolic AI for simplifying legislation using knowledge graphs and LegalXML.