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The Explorer has two working pages. Search References lists the catalogue as a table you can filter and export. Build Graphs plots the same catalogue and lets you read individual records out of a region of the plot.
Both pages share the same layout: filters on the left, results on the right. Filters apply immediately; there is no button to press.
The general search box matches anything in the table, a word or a number alike.
Beyond it there is a set of narrower filters:
the time slider restricts the results to a period;
the Author, Title, Year, Publisher, Place and Language fields offer the values that actually occur in the catalogue — click a field or start typing to see them.
All of these combine, and they combine with the keyword tree described below.
Every record carries a list of subject keywords. They are grouped into four sections — Type of the Literature, Roman Curia, Competences and Praxis — which open when you click the coloured heading. Competences contains further subsections.
All keywords are ticked when the page loads, which is why you see the whole catalogue. Unticking narrows the results: a record is kept if it carries at least one of the keywords still ticked. Removing a single keyword therefore rarely removes a record, since most records carry several.
Select All at the top of a section ticks or unticks that section in one go.
To isolate one subject, the quickest route is to untick everything and then tick only what you want.
Three plot types are available from Select graph type:
Bubble — one bubble per combination of the two axes; the larger the bubble, the more records it stands for.
Bar — the number of records per category on the X axis, divided by the Y axis category.
Pie — the share of each value of Type of Entity.
The three drop-downs above the plot decide what is drawn: X axis, Y axis and Type of Entity, the last of which sets the colour. Any of them can be set to Year, Place, Language or Typology of publication.
The keyword tree and the time slider filter the plot exactly as they filter the table.
Drag a rectangle across the plot to list the records it covers in the table underneath. The count is shown next to Points selected, and Clear selection empties it again.
A bubble stands for several records at once, so selecting one bubble may add several rows. Bars work the same way: a bar segment touched by the rectangle contributes all of its records.
The pie chart has no area selection — it summarises the whole filtered set rather than placing records in space.
On the graph page, Download this table saves the current selection as CSV, as an Excel table, or as BibTeX for a reference manager. Download Plot saves the graph itself as a PNG.
On the search page, the filtered results can be exported in the same way, with BibTeX intended for import into your own library.
Exports always contain what is currently on screen: filter first, then download.
©2026, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft