EPICAT is a web portal that aims to build an inventory of the family epistolary correspondence existing in Catalonia between 1500 and 1850. It wants to be a tool that allows to redefine the historical interpretation built mainly by means of official documents. It looks for a new reading of the contents that include the family letters. It is available to scientific researchers and the general public.
Traditionally, the epistolary genre has studied the correspondence of illustrious figures such as intellectuals or politicians and it has omitted the value of letters from modest people, both those who were part of the elites and those of popular groups. However, correspondence is a social and cultural practice that provides direct information from which to carry out analyses of the cultural and mental aspects of family and social networks, since these letters describe political strategies, heritage decisions and domestic patterns of family groups.
The cataloguing of family epistolaries will facilitate their analysis and will contribute to understanding the transformations experienced by societies of the past by participating in educational expansion –reading and writing- and communication –mail- between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The management platform and web application EpiCAT. Family letters from Catalonia (XVIth –XIXth centuries) has been developed within the framework of the research project “Cartas familiares de Cataluña (siglos XVI-XIX). Inventario, estudio y difusión” (HAR2016-76560-P), funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Government of Spain, during the period 2017-2021.
The implementation of the project and the construction of EpiCAT has been carried out at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: the Department of Modern and Contemporary History has contributed with its material and management infrastructure and the Library Service has collaborated by advising and hosting the collection of digitised letters associated with the EpiCAT records with image.