Welcome to the PLINIOGRAPHY,

the bibliographical database of the OltrePlinio project!

The database aims at offering a comprehensive and up-to-date scientific bibliography on Pliny the Elder and his work in all research areas. This bibliography is not a mere list of titles, but a flexible tool for exploring the wide world of Pliny the Elder and for carrying out effective queries throughout a veritable mare magnum.

Each record of this database includes not only the main data of the bibliographical reference (e.g. Author, Title), but also a brief description of the contents, and, if available, the link to the online version of the contribution and a list of reviews (with the link, if online). Moreover, records are accompanied by tags that highlight the keywords associated to the entry. However, albeit containing the information of a standard bibliography, the records have a layout that differs from the libraries’ catalogues or a book’s bibliography and that is expressly designed for the web. This is intended to underline the novelty of this tool and its function, which is not to replace other research tools, but rather to offer different potentialities and possibilities of use.

The field Sections indicates whether the contribution focuses on Pliny the Elder and the Naturalis Historia (label Pliny), or is an edition of the text (label Editions), or else deals with a wider issue, in which Pliny the Elder is quoted as a source (label Beyond Pliny). The contributions on the fortune of Pliny in the Post-Antique age are also labelled as Beyond Pliny. The field Sections is intended to help you move through Pliny’s wide bibliography, offering an indication of how extensively Pliny is discussed in each contribution. In fact, since the Naturalis Historia deals with many different topics (geography, history, botany, medicine, art, metals etc.), Pliny is often quoted and studied in contributions that are not specifically dedicated to his works.

Such a wealth of information will allow you to navigate the whole database in different directions: you may use the search function (Search Bibliography) to retrieve entries containing the entered words, since all the fields included in the record are searchable. On the left, the facets suggest to you some search criteria selected by the OltrePlinio team (Authors, Editors, Tags, Sections, Language) or enable you to refine the free search done through the Search Bibliography.

For your search, please consider that the language of the database is British English, but the titles of contributions are in their original language. Tags: for Greek authors’ names and works, see the LSJ list; Latin authors are indicated with the tria nomina, see the TLL list (also for their works); the tria nomina are also used, when possible, for Roman personal names; for Greek personal names, also artists’ names, the form transliterated from Greek is adopted (e.g. Pheidias, not Phidias); technical lexicon is in Latin or transliterated Greek; when possible, the Plinian Latin name is used for artworks. To search the contributions on a specific passage of the Naturalis Historia, please use the form “Plin. NH book.paragraph(s)” (e.g. Plin. NH 35.15-16).

The records are filled in by one or more authors, who are responsible for their contents. Before publication they are corrected and edited by the editorial board of the database and by the authors themselves with two proof reviews. We invite you to contact us at info@oltreplinio.it for any comments on the bibliography or on the contents of the records.

To begin a search, click here. 

Otherwise, you may use the section Selected Bibliography to explore a more limited dataset chosen by the OltrePlinio team. This selection includes the main studies dedicated to the Naturalis Historia and, in particular, to the art books (33-37). It will help you if you are not familiar with Pliny’s bibliography and find it quite hard to sift through the massive quantity of contributions dedicated to this author and his literary activity.