About the Journal
Journal's Aims & Scope
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art is a scholarly and peer-reviewed open access journal. It is published by the University of Milan, Department of Cultural Heritage and Environment. Fenestella publishes scholarly papers on medieval art and architecture, between Late Antiquity and c. 1400, covering the Latin West, the Byzantine East and medieval Islam. The journal aims to consider medieval artefacts from within, as if seen through a fenestella confessionis, in order to throw light on iconography, function and liturgical practice and space.
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art supports basic research, favouring an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach arising from the horizon and methodology of art history. Papers on wide-ranging themes, critical reviews and studies of micro-topics are all welcome, as long as they contribute to debate at an international level.
Submissions that satisfy a preliminary review by the Editorial board are then peer-reviewed by anonymous reviewers. After final acceptance and copyediting each article is given a DOI number, to be published and indexed. Articles published during a calendar year are collected in an annual Issue.
Publication Frequency
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art publishes on Issue per year.
Languages
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art accepts submissions in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish, with abstracts in English.
Open Access Policy
Fenestella's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 4.0 International License, on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Open Access Policy is based on rules of Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/
Sherpa Romeo
Preprint and postprint version of the articles can be archived anywhere under the same license.
Peer Review Process
Each submitted manuscript that passes the preliminary review by the Editorial board is reviewed by two external reviewers under a double-blind peer review process.
Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript based on its originality, scholarly relevance, methodological correctness, soundness of arguments, appropriateness to the aims and areas of interest of the Journal.
Article Processing and Submission Charges
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art doesn’t have article submission charges nor article processing charges (APCs).
Archiving
The University of Milan has an archival arrangement with the National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome within the national project Magazzini Digitali.
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art has enabled the PKP PN (Preservation Network) plugin, in order to preserve digital contents through LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) project.
If an article is based on research data, such data must be treated in a FAIR manner, i.e. stored in a FAIR archive.
Copyright Policy
The author allows Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art the right to publish for the first time the work, and the perpetual right to distribute the work free of charge by any means and in any parts of the world, including the communication to the public through the Journal website.
The Author retains the right to create derivative works and to reproduce, distribute, execute or publicly display her/his Work at conferences and presentations, lectures, and in case of any other professional activity.
The Author retains the right to disseminate open access the work, through his website or through an institutional or disciplinary, from the publishing on Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art.
The Author, according to the Publisher, renounces to any forms of compensation provided to authors and publishers for no-profit photocopying rights and library loan in accordance to the National law in force.
Plagiarism
Editors have a duty to act promptly in case of errors and misconducts, both proven and alleged. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. In case such as errors in articles or in the publication process, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, appropriate steps will be taken, following the recommendations, guidelines and flowcharts from COPE.
Corrections will happen with due prominence, including the publication of an erratum (errors from the publication process), corrigendum (errors from the author/s) or, in the most severe cases, the retraction of the affected work. Retracted papers will be retained online, and they will be prominently marked as a retraction in all online versions for the benefit of future readers.
iThenticate
The journal performs a Similarity Check on the submissions received, through iThenticate software.
Research Data
The University of Milan supports the adoption of FAIR data.
When published research is linked to data, authors are invited to make them available according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and to provide the link to the FAIR compliant repository where they have been archived.
Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories; authors from the University of Milan can use dataverse.unimi.it, the institutional open access repository of the University of Milan.
Declaration of Artificial Intelligence
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art acknowledges the importance of artificial intelligence innovations understanding the challenges and opportunities they entail.
Authors who have used artificial intelligence tools in the editing of a manuscript, in the production of images or graphical elements of the article, or in the collection and analysis of data, are invited to explicitly declare their use, mentioning the AI tool, the field of application, the search queries used and the date of use, in order to allow reproducibility and verification.
The Author will remain responsible for the accuracy and correctness of any published content and guarantees compliance with the code of ethics and anti-plagiarism rules.
Authors who have used AI, or AI-assisted tools, are required to include a paragraph at the end of their manuscript, entitled "Declaration on Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies in the Writing Process", with the following information:
"During the preparation of this paper the Author(s) used [TOOL/SERVICE NAME] on [DD/MM/YYYY} using the search terms: [SEARCH THERMS] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the Author(s) have reviewed and edited the content as necessary and take full responsibility for the content of the publication."
Editors are not allowed to upload received manuscripts into AI software, in order not to risk compromising privacy and copyright.
Reviewers undertake not to use AI tools to evaluate manuscripts in order to guarantee the application of critical thinking and original assessment, as required for this work.
PUBLISHING ETHICS
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art is a peer-reviewed scientific journal inspired by the publication ethics developed by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Fenestella aims at granting authors, readers, reviewers, and all other parties involved maximum transparency and complete and honest reporting about its work. Authors, editors and referees must be familiar with and share the following ethical requirements.
1. Accountability and Responsibility for Journal Content
Journal's editors take responsibility for all works published on Fenestella. They strive to grant both scientific and editorial quality by double-blind peer review and careful editing. The Journal maintains the integrity of the published record and grants long time preservation of all published content by using the LOCKKS system.
2. Editorial Independence and Integrity
2.1 Independence of editorial decisions from commercial interests
Fenestella's editors make their decisions about proposals submitted to the Journal and published works on academic merit alone and take full responsibility for their decisions.
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art embraces an open access policy and has no commercial interest, so the journal’s editorial processes and editors’ decisions are independent of any commercial consideration.
2.2 Editors’ relationship to the journal publisher
Fenestella's editors work on a volunteer basis. The Journal’s website is hosted by the University of Milan, a public institution which has a scientific research and teaching mission and does not interfere with Fenestella editors’ freedom of choice and activities, as long as their work is coherent with the scholarly mission of the Journal.
2.3 Journal metrics and decision-making
Fenestella's editors do not attempt to influence the Journal’s ranking by artificially increasing any journal metric. In particular, they strive to ensure that submitted papers are reviewed on purely scholarly grounds and that authors are not pressured to cite specific publications for non-scholarly reasons.
3. Editorial Confidentiality
3.1 Authors’ material
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art selects papers to be published through double-blind peer review. Peer reviewers are chosen by editors, who strive to protect the confidentiality of authors’ material and remind reviewers to do so as well. Submitted papers are never shared with editors of other journals, unless with the authors’ agreement or in cases of alleged misconduct (see below). Editors do not give any indication of a paper’s status with the journal to anyone other than the authors. Fenestella web-based submission system prevents unauthorised access. In the case of a misconduct investigation, it may be necessary to disclose material to third parties (e.g., an institutional investigation committee or other editors).
3.2 Reviewers
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art selects papers to be published through double-blind peer review. Therefore, during the peer review process reviewers’ identities are protected, unless an alleged or suspected reviewer’s misconduct compels the Journal to disclose the reviewer’s name to a third party.
4. Encourage Maximum Transparency and Good Publishing Ethics
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art aims at granting authors, readers, reviewers, and all other parties involved maximum transparency and complete and honest reporting about its work.
4.1 Authorship and responsibility
All signing authors of works published on Fenestella take responsibility for the conduct and validity of their research and for what is written in their contributions. Authors acknowledge that all contents are published under a Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 4.0 International License. Should any authorship dispute arise, it will be resolved at the appropriate institutional level or through other appropriate independent bodies. Fenestella's editors will then act on the findings, for example by correcting authorship in published works.
4.2 Conflicts of interest and role of the funding source
Authors are required to declare any relevant financial or non-financial conflict of interest at the moment they submit their papers for publication on Fenestella. Declarations of conflicting interests are published alongside the paper so that readers are informed about them.
4.3 Authors’ publishing ethics
Fenestella's editors work to ensure that all published papers make a substantial new contribution to their field. They discourage ‘salami publications’ (i.e., publication of the minimum publishable unit of research), avoid duplicate or redundant publication unless it is fully declared and acceptable to all (e.g., publication in a different language with cross-referencing), and encourage authors to place their work in the context of previous work (i.e., to state why this work was necessary/done, what this work adds or why a replication of previous work was required, and what readers should take away from it).
If an article is based on research data, such data must be treated in a FAIR manner, i.e. stored in a FAIR archive.
5. Responding to Criticisms and Concerns
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art welcomes and encourages criticism and debate.
5.1 Ensuring integrity of the published record - corrections
When genuine errors in works published on Fenestella are pointed out by readers, authors, or editors, which do not render the work invalid, a correction (or erratum) will be published as soon as possible. The paper will be corrected with a date of correction. If the error renders the work or substantial parts of it invalid, the paper will be retracted with an explanation as to the reason for retraction (i.e., honest error). Retracted papers will be retained online, and they will be prominently marked as a retraction in all online versions for the benefit of future readers.
5.2 Ensuring the integrity of the published record – suspected research or publication misconduct
If serious concerns are raised by readers, reviewers, or others, about the conduct, validity, or reporting of works published on Fenestella, the editors of the journal will initially contact the authors and allow them to respond to the concerns. If that response is unsatisfactory, editors will take the matter to the appropriate institutional level. The editors of Fenestella will also do their best to respond to findings from research integrity organisations that indicate misconduct relating to works published on Fenestella.
Editors can themselves decide to retract a paper if they are convinced that serious misconduct has happened even if an investigation by an institution or national body does not recommend it. Editors will respond to all allegations or suspicions of research or publication misconduct raised by readers, reviewers, or other editors. In general, they acknowledge collective responsibility for the research record of the Journal and will act whenever they become aware of potential misconduct if at all possible.
5.3 Encourage scholarly debate
Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art welcomes readers’ criticisms to works published by the Journal and will consider publishing them to foster scientific debate, as long as they are proposed in a timely manner. The Authors of the original works will be given the opportunity to reply to further promote the debate. Any criticisms that raise the possibility of misconduct will be further investigated even if they are received a long time after publication.
6. Ensuring a Fair and Appropriate Peer Review Process
Fenestella's editors organize and use peer review fairly and wisely. The peer review processes is clearly explained in the information for authors' page on Fenestella's website.
6.1 Decision whether to review
Fenestella's editors may reject a paper without peer review when it is deemed unsuitable for the Journal’s readers or is of poor quality. This decision is made in a fair and unbiased way and the criteria used to make this decision are made explicit to the Author. The decision not to send a paper for peer review is only based on the academic content of the paper, and it is not influenced by the nature of the authors or their host institution.
6.2 Interaction with peer reviewers
Fenestella's editors use appropriate peer reviewers for papers that are considered for publication by selecting people with sufficient expertise and avoiding those with conflicts of interest. Fenestella's editors ensure that reviews are received in a timely manner.
Peer reviewers are told what is expected of them and are informed about any changes in editorial policies. Peer reviewers are asked to assess research and publication ethics issues (i.e., whether they think the research was done and reported ethically, or if they have any suspicions of plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, or redundant publication).
Fenestella's editors have a policy to request a formal conflict of interest declaration from peer reviewers and ask peer reviewers to inform them about any such conflict of interest at the earliest opportunity so that they can make a decision on whether an unbiased review is possible. Certain conflicts of interest may disqualify a peer reviewer. Fenestella's editors stress confidentiality of the material to peer reviewers.
6.3 Reviewer misconduct
Fenestella's editors take reviewer misconduct seriously and pursue any allegation of breach of confidentiality, non-declaration of conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage. Allegations of serious reviewer misconduct, such as plagiarism, are taken to the institutional level.
6.4 Interaction with Authors
Fenestella's editors make it clear to authors that the role of the peer reviewer is to provide recommendations on acceptance or rejection. Correspondence from editors is usually with the corresponding author, who have the responsibility to involve co-authors at all stages. Fenestella's editors communicate with all authors at first submission and at final acceptance stage to ensure all authors are aware of the submission and have approved the publication. Normally, Fenestella's editors pass on all peer reviewers’ comments in their entirety. However, in exceptional cases, it may be necessary to exclude parts of a review, if it, for example, contains libellous or offensive remarks.
Fenestella's editors guarantee that such editorial discretion is not inappropriately used to suppress inconvenient comments. Should there be good reasons to involve additional reviewers at a late stage in the process, it is clearly communicated to authors. The final editorial decision and reasons for this are clearly communicated to authors and reviewers. If a paper is rejected, Fenestella's editors welcome appeals from authors. Editors, however, are not obliged to overturn their decision.
7. Editorial Decision-Making
Fenestella's editors guarantee that decisions on publications are as fair and unbiased as possible.
7.1 Editorial and journal processes
All editorial processes are made clear in the information for authors on the Journal's webpage, where it is stated what is expected of authors, which types of papers are published, and how papers are handled by the Journal. All editors are fully familiar with the journal policies, vision, and scope. The final responsibility for all decisions rests with the managing editor.
7.2 Editorial conflicts of interest
Fenestella's editors are not involved in decisions about papers in which they have a conflict of interest, for example if they work or have worked in the same institution and collaborated with the authors, if they own stock in a particular company, or if they have a personal relationship with the authors. Fenestella has a process in place to handle papers submitted by editors or editorial board members to ensure unbiased and independent handling of such papers. This process is stated in the information for authors.
Credits
Powered by OJS, engineered and maintained by 4Science
