by Francesco Bonomi

This software requires a PC running Microsoft Windows with at least 2 Mbyte of RAM. Hard disk requirements vary depending from the number of files you want to search contemporaneously. Disk requirements, depending on the amount of data installed, ranges from about 2 to about 33 Mbytes.

The program, along with the data, comes on five high density 3.5" diskettes.

The data utilized in this archive were made available by the Data and Program Library Service, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The data for the Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480 were prepared by David Herlihy, Department of history, Harvard University and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, France. Neither the principal investigators nor the Data and Program Library Service bear any responsability for the analyses or interpretations presented here.

The data on these diskettes is a compressed, but otherwise almost unmodified copy of the original data files. A list of the changes made to these files can be seen below.

This software and data is distributed by:

Data and Program Library Serviceemail: guy@dpls.dacc.wisc.edu

4452 Social Science Buidingphone: 608-262-7962

University of Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin 53706

The author of this software can be reached at:

Francesco Bonomiemail: f.bonomi@agora.stm.it

Le Piallephone and fax: + 39 55 854005

50022 Greve in Chianti Fifrom Italy: (055) 854005

ITALY

The search software and its documentation is © 1994,1995 Francesco Bonomi, all rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Changes made to the data files3

Installation4

Installing the software4

Installing the data4

Using the software6

The Work areas6

Selecting a series6

Searching in data7

Other options for searches8

The Hit frame9

Combining searches9

Generating reports10

Distributing the software10

Future enhancements11

Microsoft Windows and Visual Basic are registered trademarks of Microsoft Inc.

Changes to the data files

The following is a list of the small changes that I made to the original files, in order to make them usable by the software.

The structure of the files has been made consistent: all the files have been transformed to the structure of 1 economic record + 5 demographic records: in all files, the 50 slots available in the demographic records (10 slots each record) where all present, even if not occupied. Just one file, the file ECCLESI.DAT, had only the demographic records needed to store the persons actually listed in the Catasto. In this file, empty demographic records have been added in order to have constant record length on all the archive.

Always for the sake of consistency, the same file (ECCLESI.DAT) has been renamed to NEWCAT51.DAT, so that all the filenames had the same structure. The series number 51 has been taken from the series number field of the file.

The files have been compressed using Microsoft's COMPRESS program. The compressed form of the file name has an underscore character "_" at the end of the extension: NEWCAT01.DAT becomes NEWCAT01.DA_

If you ask to do this, the Data Setup program will strip off from the files all the demographic data, reducing the file size to one sixth of the original size. If you are not interested in demographic data, you can save a considerable amount of disk space. But if you do this, the data you have on your hard disk will have been modified.

Please do not distribute the stripped-down files! If you want to give this software and data to someone else, read the section about distributing the software.

To install the archive, you have to:

Install the program on your hard disk;

Decompress the data files that you need.

These two steps will be explained in the next two sections.

Installing the software

From Windows' Program Manager, select the menu voice File and then Run. A dialog will appear,requesting you to enter a command line. Enter A:INSTALL, and click on the Ok button. After a small while, the program will ask you the directory name where the program must be installed. C:\CATASTO is the default value. Change the directory name, if needed, and the click on the Ok button.

The installation process will begin, and at the end you will have a new window (called CATASTO) in Program Manager, and in the window the following icons:

CatastoThe main program. Do not execute this program now.

Catasto Data SetupThe program that lets you decompress and install/uninstall

individual data files.

Read meOptional file with last-minute notes and updates to this manual.

If this file is there, do read it!

The software is now installed, but without any data file. To be able to work, you will have to install one or more of the data files. You can do this by double-clicking on the Catasto data setup icon, and following the instructions found in next section.

Installing the data

The complete archive is about 33 Mbytes in size, and therefore it is often not practical to have it all installed at once. There are two ways to reduce the hard disk occupation of the archives:

1) not installing all the files together (i.e. installing only the files that you are working with);

2) installing only the economic part of the data (more on this subject follows)

As to point 1), the data are divided in 32 files, that follow administrative division of the florentine domains. By the way, it was quite reasonable to do so, as for historical reasons the Catasto survey was taken in very different manners in each administrative division.

Point 2) requires a small understanding of the Catasto file structure. Each tax declaration was entered in a record, and the data were divided as follows:

one set of data common to all the household, the so-called economic record;

one smaller set of data (sex, age etc.) for each individual belonging to the household, the demographic record.

The first set of data was entered as a fixed-length record of 80 characters. The demographic data, where a variable number of persons per household had to be recorded, posed greater problems. Mediating with the 80-characters imposed by the punched cards, the solution adopted was to record 10 persons (plus a small header in front) in each record. A limit of 50 persons per household was taken, and this gave 5 demographic records, (each 80 characters long). If you look at the data files with a word processor or text viewer, you can easily recognize the record structure, made by one line of economical data and 5 lines of demographic data (usually almost empty, with a few persons per household).

Now, if you are not interested in demographic researches, the demographic data, which alone take 5/6 of the space (that's 83%), can be skipped altogether. If this is your case, the program will create a new file, with the extension .DA2 instead of .DAT, made by taking only one line out of six from the original file. This is what I call a file without demographic data.

If you execute the Data setup program, a list of all the available series will appear. To the right, the current status of that series will be shown. A series can be either not installed, installed, or installed without demographic data.

If this the first time you run the data setup program, all the series will be not installed. Click on any line, and you will be given some information about the series (this appears just under the listbox). Any time you click on a series, you select or deselect it. Selected series are highlighted, and the program shows you the total amount of disk space needed for them.

Just for a test, select only the series 02 City of Florence, additions of 1428. This is one of the smallest series, and you can try and install it right now, pressing the button Install selected series with all the data. The program will prompt you for the right floppy, and decompress the file onto your hard disk. If you select again the same series and press the button Install selected series without demographic data, the program will realize that the file is already on your hard disk and strip off the demographic data from the file.

If a series is not installed and you ask to install it without demographic data, the program decompresses the complete file to your hard disk and the strips off the demographic data.

If you select more than one series and ask to install them, the program will repeat the needed steps for each series, asking you the right disk each time. Decompressing the files and stripping demographic data can take some time, especially for the larger series.

When you are done with one series, you can delete it from your hard disk using the third button, Remove selected series from your hard disk. In case you need the series again, you can always install it anew.

When you have installed the series you think you need, quit the Data setup program.

The complete files and the ones without demographic data behave exactly in the same way during the searches, and the program automatically recognizes the difference. You can even have mixed series, some with and some without demographic data, and use them in parallel.

Using the software

To run the search program, double-click on the Catasto icon. This will bring up the Catasto search program. The Catasto program will probably be quite different from most of the database program you will have used.

The main thing is that to do any search the program has to scan through all the file, and this sometimes becomes slow. To compensate this, I have made it possible to keep looking at the data while the program is searching. You may, for example, start a search and begin reading records, and even look at the first found records (hits) while the program keeps searching.

Another unusual concept is that of work area. As we have seen, this archive is broken up in 32 data files with the same structure, each containing data of a different region. It is often needed to make a search on one series, repeat it on a second series, and perhaps compare the results. To do this, you will have one file open in a work area and the other file open in another. Each area is independent, and you can switch between areas without losing the results of searches.

The following sections will explain more in detail each function of the program.

The Work areas

The program has a maximum of 10 work areas, and each one can be used to search and browse in a different file. You can also use different work areas with the same file, and perform different searches in each area.

Each work area is completely indipendent: when you change work area, the current area status (series number, current record, hit list etc.) is saved and the status of the new area is recalled. When you switch back to the old area, the status "magically" reappears.

To change work area, use the drop-down list at the top left of the screen. If you have several active areas at once, it can be difficoult to remember what is happening in each of them; if this is your case, you can assign a name to each work area by pressing the Change area name button: the name you give to this area will appear in the work area list.

With the Copy area to ... button the status of a work area can be copied to another area, in case you want to do "parallel" researches starting from the same situation.

But the nicest thing of work areas is that if you don't need them, you can forget they exist! If all this seems too complicate for you, ignore this section and skip to the next. You will anyway be able to work with the program!

Selecting a series

The drop-down list marked Series lets you select the data series you want to work with. In this list, only the series that have been installed appear. If you want to open a series, an its name does not appear here, you have to quit the program and use the Data Setup program to install it to your hard disk.

If the series you open has no demographic data, a label will appear, saying "No demographic area in this file". If no series is open most of the controls on-screen will be de-activated.

The series' data have the same structure, with a few exceptions:

Series 51, Ecclesiastical properties of Diocese of Florence, does not have the structure name-name of father-family name, and the denomination has been entered (without spaces) in the three fields. This makes it quite difficoult to read the institution's name (for example, S. Maria del Fiore appears as SMARIADELFIORE). More important, it also makes impossible to search in the data for a particular name. A small modification to the software would be needed in order to do so.

It also appears that some of the codes (namely, household type and trade/occupation) have different values in this series. As I do not know these values, I left the same messages used in the other series. This causes odd effects, like having S. Maria del Fiore listed as "living abroad" and other churches as "shepherd" (not in a spiritual meaning, I suppose).

Series 98 and 99, containing data about Verona, clash with some of the messages as well. When of a person is said "comes from a non-florentine italian locality" this should be read as "comes from a non-veronese italian locality". This is also true for other similar messages.

To the right of the screen, a frame labeled Record lets you browse through the records. In the top line, a label informs you of the current position in the file of the record you are viewing and of the total number of records.

To move into the archive, you can use one of the four buttons or the scrolling bar.

While you move in the file, in the bottom left part of the screen the current record is shown. First come the economic data about the household, then (if present) the demographic data are used to build a list of members of the household. Sometimes this list grows too long, and to read it all you have to scroll the text up.

Most of the codes used in the data are translated to their meaning, with the single important exception of the codes for relationships of household members, that would have filled up the screen too much. These codes are listed in Appendix C, pages 56-57 of the codebook prepared by DPLS.

If you press the mouse button in the display area and move the cursor while keeping the button pressed, you select an area of text. If you have selected some text and click on the Copy button, the selected text gets copied to the clipboard ready for you to use in your preferred application. If you need to do something similar for larger amounts of data, see the section about report generation.

Searching in data

To search for something in the data, you have to do the following:

Specify where to search, choosing one of the fields specified in the Field dropdown list. Some of the fields will not be applicable if the series you are working with has no demographic data.

For example, select here Trade or occupation.

Specify what to search, using the Field value text box. If the field you have selected is a coded field, i.e. a field where a numeric code corresponds to a certain value, a dropdown list will appear, providing an on-line codebook for the data. When you choose an item from the codebook, its code will be transported in the Field value text box.

In the above example, if you selected the field Trade or occupation, pull down the codebook list and select the first value, 1 for Peasant landlord.

Start the search operation, pressing one of the search buttons: New, Narrow, or Enlarge. For our example, press New. This will start a new search.

Other options for searches

When you select a field to search on, you might have one of the following options available:

Truncated search: select values that begin with the specified characters;

Substring search: select values that contain the specified characters;

Equal, Larger, Lesser: select values that are equal, larger or lesser that the specified value.

The first two options only appear when applicable, that is when you search on names. The latter three options only appear when you search on numeric values like economic values and age.

One particular use of the Truncated search is with location codes. Location codes were assigned so that the code itself would be a representation of an administrative structure. For example, these are the codes for part of the City of Florence:

0001Quartiere Di S. Spirito

00011Gonfalone Scala

00012Gonfalone Nicchio

00013Gonfalone Ferza

00014Gonfalone Drago

0002Quartiere Di S. Croce

00021Gonfalone Carro

00022Gonfalone Bue

00023Gonfalone Leon Nero

00024Gonfalone Ruote

Each Quarter is made up of four Gonfaloni, and all the codes of Gonfaloni belonging to Quarter 0001 begin with 0001. This remains true for the much more complicated administrative divisions of the countryside.

No record will have a location code of 0001, specifying Quartiere di S. Spirito, but all records belonging to one of the Gonfaloni of the Quarter of S. Spirito will have a location code that begins with 0001.

This is why the program displays the option box for Truncated search when you search on location codes. In addition the program automatically sets this option if you select an area that contains administrative subdivisions. This makes it work automatically: if you select the Quarter of S. Spirito the program understand that what you wanted were all the subdivisions of the Quarter.

The Hit frame

In addition to the four movement buttons, the Hit frame has two other ones that perform special operations: the List and the Remove buttons.

The List button displays a list of the hits, and lets you chose the one you want to see. If you have a very large number of hits, this option becomes too slow to be useful.

The Remove button removes the current hit from the hit list. This is sometimes useful when you want to "clean" by hand a set of records, where a few records satisfy the search conditions but for other reasons you do not want to have them as hits.

Combining searches

To combine searches, rather than the usual AND / OR boolean operations, you will use a different but absolutely equivalent concept, the concept of "narrowing" and "enlarging" a search.

To build a combined search, for example a search of money changers that rent the house where they live, make the first part of the search as usual:

select fhe field Trade or occupation, then select a field value of 23 Money changer;

press the New button to start a new search.

When the search is completed, set the parameters for the second part of the search:

Select the field Type of dwelling, and a field value of 2 Rents the house where he lives.

At this point, rather than pressing New, press the Narrow button, as you want to narrow your prevous search.

You will notice that:

The search is much faster, as only the money lenders' records are checked.

The number of hits (the number after the slash in the Hit frame) decrease while, checking the records, the program finds and discards money lenders that do not rent the house where they live.

The Enlarge button works in a similar, but opposite way.

In some cases, to the extreme right of the Search frame a button will appear, labeld Undo. When doing search combinantions, this button brings us back one step in the search combination process, undoing last search.

Generating reports

A limited capability of report generation has been implemented. Clicking on the Report button will open the report generation dialog; you may then:

Select the records you want to list (all the series, or just the hit records).

Select the fields you want in the report.

Select the output format, depending on the use you want to make of the report. For example, if you want to import the data in DBase the best format will be In quotes, separated with commas. From DBase, once you set up a DBF structure, you will be able to import very easily the data with the command APPEND FROM DELIMITED. The following are samples of different exporting formats:

Separated with tabs

CIPRIANO di LUIGI GHERARDINIOwns the home where he livesOwns cattle

Separated with commas

CIPRIANO di LUIGI GHERARDINI,Owns the home where he lives,Owns cattle

In quotes, separated with commas

"CIPRIANO di LUIGI GHERARDINI","Owns the home where he lives","Owns cattle"

Select where you want the report to be generated. Two options are available: Clipboard and File. Generating a report to the clipboard is suitable for on-the-fly exports of small amount of data. The report's data will be placed in Windows' clipboard and you will be albe to paste them in any other application. Exporting to the clipboard has a limit of about 32000 characters: If the report exceeds this, the program will warn you and only part of the data will be exported. In these cases, it is better to export the data to a file, and then read the file back into the application you want to use.

Please note that in some programs, like Microsoft Word, simply pasting the clipboard's contents will not produce the results you may expect. In these cases, try using the Paste special command, and selecting the Unformatted text option.

Sorry, reporting to the printer is not supported. If you really need this, you will have to export to a file, and then print the file with your word processor.

Distributing the software

If you want to make a copy of this archive, do not make a copy of what is installed onto your hard disk. The files actually installed on your hard disk vary depending on what you have asked the program to install for you.

What you should do is a copy of the original diskettes you received the software on. This will allow the person to whom you give the archive to have the same choices you had. To copy a diskette, you probably will have to use the DOS command DISKCOPY.

This is a packing list for the five diskettes:

Disk labelFileUse

Catasto disk #1INSTALL.EXEInstallation program, copies all the other files to your hard disk

INSTALL.DATInstallation-related data

CATASTO.EXEThe main search program

CAT_DATA.EXEThe data setup program

INSTINFO.DATInformation file for the setup program

VBRUN300.DLLVisual Basic Run-time library

GTLIST.VBXGeorge R. Torralba's add-on for Visual Basic. He can be reached at grtorlba@seattleu.edu

CATCOD.nn(where nn is the series number)

33 files containing the location codes codebooks for each data series.

CATASTO.DOCThe users' manual for the program.

README.WRILast minute changes and additions

Compressed data for series 10, 12, 13, 22, 25, 30, 31, 32, 34, 80, 98

Catasto data disk #2Compressed data for series 01, 19, 33

Catasto data disk #3Compressed data for series 06, 11, 18, 20, 24, 51, 02, 07, 23, 58

Catasto data disk #4Compressed data for series 05, 21, 15, 99

Catasto data disk #5Compressed data for series 03, 04, 16, 17

Data files are named as follows, where nn is the seris number:

NEWCATnn.DA_Compressed data file, as found on floppies;

NEWCATnn.DATUncompressed complete data file, created by the Data Setup program;

NEWCATnn.DA2Uncompressed data file without demographic data, created by Data Setup.

Future enhancements

This software has several limits, and I will keep updating it. The following is a list of the enhancements to be made to the software, in approximate priority order:

Make it possible to save search results

Allow background searches even if you change work area.

Make it possible to search on names in series 51, correct the messages for Verona series and correct the masculin gender messages referred to woman.

Adopt an intermediate file format, where the demographic data are present but not the unused slots that make the files so big.

If you have any suggestion for new items in this list, or want to move an item up in the priority, let me know.

And, most important: please do report me of any bug you might find into this program.