Modeling Institutional Literary Networks: A Relational Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Theatre Archives

Computational Literary Studies (CLS) has traditionally focused on literary texts as primary objects of analysis. This poster extends that perspective by examining how literary production is embedded in institutional and performative structures. The project examines the nineteenth-century fonds of the Teatro Metastasio, preserved at the Archivio di Stato di Prato, in order to investigate how administrative and organizational processes shaped theatrical and cultural production. The research focuses on the period between 1827 and 1860, a chronological framework identified as most suitable for constructing its historical and interpretative structure.

Rather than constructing a corpus of literary texts, the project builds a structured, relational dataset from heterogeneous archival materials, including administrative deliberations, contracts, correspondence, accounting records, and technical documentation. These sources document decision-making processes, repertory planning, and financial transactions that structured theatrical activity. The central research question concerns how institutional frameworks underlying performance and cultural production can be represented as computationally analyzable entities and relationships.

The project develops a conceptual data model including entities such as people (authors, impresarios, performers), institutional bodies, events (seasons and performances), documents and contracts. These entities are connected within a relational database that functions as a philological infrastructure, linking individuals, roles, and documentary traces in a structured framework. The system supports cross-entity querying, network extraction, and the visualization of temporal sequences and correspondence networks, enabling the reconstruction of institutional literary networks and production workflows that connect textual repertoires, performers, and governance structures.

Methodologically, the project contributes to current debates in Computational Literary Studies by broadening the analytical focus from text-centered corpora to the institutional and performative conditions of literary production. It develops a structured representation of concepts such as “season,” “institutional decision,” and “artistic collaboration,” treating them as historically situated categories rather than purely technical abstractions. Particular emphasis is placed on interpretability and transparency: modeling choices and classificatory decisions are explicitly documented, allowing the research process itself to remain open to scrutiny and critical discussion.

The poster presents the data model, database schema, and preliminary visualizations (temporal sequences and network graphs), discussing both analytical opportunities and limitations. By integrating archival modeling with computational analysis, the project proposes an expanded understanding of literary systems in CLS, where institutional and performative contexts become analyzable components of literary history. The project also provides a methodological contribution to digital humanities by demonstrating how relational models can mediate between archival complexity and computational analysis, offering a framework applicable to other cultural heritage collections.