Echos. Una WebApp per lo studio di suoni, musiche e strumenti del passato e il caso della riḥla di Ibn Baṭṭūṭa

This article introduces Echos, an innovative web-app developed in accordance with the FAIR principles, to facilitate the cataloguing, geolocation, and analysis of musical, sonic, and choreographic testimonies found in travelogues for historical- musicological and multidisciplinary studies. Echos facilitates diachronic and synchronic comparisons across many sources, supporting the preservation of historical sonorities and musical heritages of the past, while acknowledging the centrality of humanity within its ecological setting. The first section of the article situates the web-app in the national and international historiographical context and in the Italian political framework as an output within the parameters established by the National Research Plan 2021-2027 and the National Strategy for Intelligent Specialization. In that framework, the synergy between MIUR-funded research initiatives concentrating on musical history - in conjunction with findings from ethnomusicology, ecomusicology, and ecoacoustics - emphasizing sound and musical biodiversity, resulted in Echos. The subsequent section of the article discusses the application of this technology in the case study of the travelogue chronicling the longest journey of the Middle Ages, the Riḥla of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, a 14th-century Moroccan jurist. Utilizing a methodology that considers the intersection among empirical data, subjective and intersubjective viewpoints, the accounts of music and sound practices at Muslim courts are analyzed within the framework of the relationship between music and power. Ultimately, novel comparative assessments of the musical lexicon used in the source are proposed, also correcting previous editions of the text. The usages of terms such as samāʿ (listening) and mūsīqā are discussed.