A journey through centuries of Byzantine history takes digital form: the University of Trieste has officially presented the Nomismata Database, a research project of excellence and a significant advancement in the field of Digital Humanities. 

The database, which currently includes more than 210,000 data entries from around 5,000 sites, represents the first large-scale, systematic effort to catalogue finds of Byzantine coins minted between 498 and 1453, both within and beyond the borders of the Empire.
Developed with the support of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, the Department of Humanities, the UniTS International Relations Office and the 2022 PRIN (Research Projects of National Interest) programme, the project is the result of collaboration among numerous internationally renowned scholars and researchers, including Cécile Morrisson, Vivien Prigent, Gheorghia Alexopoulou, Vujadin Ivanišević, Ermanno Arslan, Stefan Krmnicek, Alessia Rovelli, Erika Trbojević, Stoyan Mihaylov, Nikolaus Schindel, Luca Zavagno, Andrea Gariboldi, Giulio Carraro, Cristiano Rossetti and Kateryna Sorochan.

Equally fundamental was the IT contribution of Giorgio Donato, Jordan Piščanc and Davide Franch, along with the communication design curated by Pamela Theodotou and Giulia Basso.

During the presentation, a prestigious new donation was also announced: Giorgio Conetti, Professor Emeritus at the University of Insubria and former Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Trieste (1984–1992), has donated his personal collection of coins from medieval Serbia, the Latin Empire and 19th-century Balkan states to the University. This enriches the numismatic heritage available for research and public engagement.

A section dedicated to the study of Byzantine seals from archaeological excavations will also be integrated into the database, in collaboration with the Research Centre for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art of the Academy of Athens, represented by Olga Karagiorgou.

The database, which is part of the University Museum Services (SMATS), will be accessible online at www.smats.units.it, where it will be maintained, continuously updated and further developed, also through the application of artificial intelligence tools.