Conoshing the Connoisseurs

A browseable bibliography of early publications (1890–1903) by Bernard Berenson, Mary Berenson, and Logan Pearsall Smith, sourced from the Semantic Lab Wikibase via SPARQL.

Live: https://semanticlab.github.io/berenson-bibliography/

Data

The Wikibase instance at base.semlab.io models each bibliography entry as an item linked to the Berenson Bibliography Project (wd:Q28959). Three SPARQL queries against the proxy endpoint power the interface:

https://query.semlab.io/proxy/wdqs/bigdata/namespace/wdq/sparql

The interface fetches all three queries in parallel and merges them client-side by item URI. This keeps multi-author and multi-reviewed-work entries as structured lists rather than flattening them with GROUP_CONCAT.

Properties used

Property	Meaning
P1	instance of (publication type)
P11	part of project (Q28959 = Berenson Bibliography Project)
P82	title
P91	author
P98	publication date
P141	qualifier on P91: pseudonym / author-name-as-published
P272	reviews (links a review to the work being reviewed)

Publication types in scope

QID	Type
Q20639	book
Q20638	article
Q20637	academic journal
Q28958	letter to the editor
Q28960	review

Author scope

Entries are filtered to those attributed (via P91) to one of:

• Q27450 — Bernard Berenson
• Q27449 — Mary Berenson
• Q27534 — Logan Pearsall Smith (Mary's brother; co-contributor on the Golden Urn journals)

The P91 statement may carry a P141 qualifier ("object named as") giving the name as it appeared in print (e.g. Mary Logan, Bernhard Berenson, M. L.). When P141 is set to the special "no value" (which the SPARQL endpoint returns as the literal string "novalue"), the work was published unsigned and the UI displays it as Mary Berenson as unsigned.

Query 1 — list

The canonical 102-row list of bibliography items.

SELECT DISTINCT ?item ?itemLabel ?date ?datePrecision (YEAR(?date) AS ?year) ?type ?typeLabel
WHERE {
  ?item wdt:P11 wd:Q28959 .
  ?item wdt:P1 ?type .
  VALUES ?type { wd:Q20639 wd:Q20638 wd:Q20637 wd:Q28958 wd:Q28960 }
  ?item p:P91 ?statementberenson .
  ?statementberenson ps:P91 ?berenson .
  VALUES ?berenson { wd:Q27449 wd:Q27450 wd:Q27534 }
  ?item p:P98 ?dateStmt .
  ?dateStmt ps:P98 ?date .
  ?dateStmt psv:P98 ?dateNode .
  ?dateNode wikibase:timePrecision ?datePrecision .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en" . }
}

?datePrecision is Wikibase's integer time precision: 9 = year, 10 = month, 11 = day. The UI uses this to suppress the -01 day or -01-01 month-day when the source data isn't that specific (e.g. a date entered only as "September 1897" returns 1897-09-01T00:00:00Z with precision 10 and renders as 1897-09).

Query 2 — attributions / pseudonyms

Multi-row: one row per (item, berenson, pseudonym) triple. An item can yield multiple rows when both Berensons are credited, or when the same Berenson appears under multiple pseudonyms.

PREFIX wdno: <http://base.semlab.io/prop/novalue/>
SELECT DISTINCT ?item ?berenson ?berensonLabel ?authorname ?unsigned
WHERE {
  ?item wdt:P11 wd:Q28959 .
  ?item wdt:P1 ?pubtype .
  VALUES ?pubtype { wd:Q20639 wd:Q20638 wd:Q20637 wd:Q28958 wd:Q28960 }
  ?item p:P91 ?statementberenson .
  ?statementberenson ps:P91 ?berenson .
  VALUES ?berenson { wd:Q27449 wd:Q27450 wd:Q27534 }
  OPTIONAL { ?statementberenson pq:P141 ?authorname }
  BIND(EXISTS { ?statementberenson a wdno:P141 } AS ?unsigned)
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en" . }
}

The BIND(EXISTS …) clause flags statements where the P141 qualifier is explicitly set to "no value" (Wikibase's "unsigned" marker). The OPTIONAL still binds ?authorname for statements with a string pseudonym; statements with neither produce a row with neither variable bound.

Query 3 — reviewed works + their authors

For review-type entries: links to the work being reviewed (P272) and that work's author(s) (P91).

SELECT DISTINCT ?item ?reviewedItem ?reviewedItemLabel ?reviewedAuthor ?reviewedAuthorLabel
WHERE {
  ?item wdt:P11 wd:Q28959 .
  ?item wdt:P1 ?pubtype .
  VALUES ?pubtype { wd:Q20639 wd:Q20638 wd:Q20637 wd:Q28958 wd:Q28960 }
  ?item p:P91 ?statementberenson .
  ?statementberenson ps:P91 ?berenson .
  VALUES ?berenson { wd:Q27449 wd:Q27450 wd:Q27534 }
  ?item wdt:P272 ?reviewedItem .
  OPTIONAL { ?reviewedItem wdt:P91 ?reviewedAuthor . }
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en" . }
}

This query is split out from the main list because adding OPTIONAL { ?reviewedItem wdt:P91 ?reviewedAuthor } to a query that already carries an OPTIONAL for the pseudonym produces a cartesian-style explosion of result rows. Keeping the optionals in separate queries and merging client-side avoids that.

Client-side merge

After all three queries return, the JS in src/sparql.js merges them into one shape per item:

{
  item: 'http://base.semlab.io/entity/Q29204',
  title: 'Review of Vittore Carpaccio et la Confrérie de Sainte Ursule à Venise',
  date: '1903-12-01T00:00:00Z',
  year: 1903,
  type: 'http://base.semlab.io/entity/Q28960',
  typeLabel: 'review',
  attributions: [
    { berenson: '…/Q27449', berensonLabel: 'Mary Berenson', authorname: 'M. L.' },
  ],
  reviewed: [
    {
      item: '…/Q29202',
      label: 'Vittore Carpaccio et la Confrérie de Sainte Ursule à Venise',
      authors: [
        { uri: '…/Q29200', label: 'Pompeo Molmenti' },
        { uri: '…/Q29201', label: 'Gustave Ludwig' },
      ],
    },
  ],
}

Rows where ?unsigned is true (or, for legacy compatibility, where ?authorname resolves to the literal string "novalue") are merged as { unsigned: true } and rendered as e.g. Mary Berenson as unsigned rather than carrying a pseudonym string.

Develop

npm install
npm run dev

Deploy

Pushing to main triggers .github/workflows/deploy.yml, which builds with npm run build and publishes dist/ to GitHub Pages. The repo's Settings → Pages → Source must be set to GitHub Actions.

The Vite base is set to /berenson-bibliography/ in production and / in dev — see vite.config.js.