Lisa Kaborycha

Lisa Kaborycha is a native of New York City, who studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received a Ph.D in Medieval and Early Modern European History in 2006. She also holds an M.A in Italian Studies and a B.A in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Her field is the social history of Renaissance Florence, specifically fifteenth-century Florentine manuscripts known as zibaldoni. She conducted research on hundreds of these manuscripts in Florentine libraries during the course of 2003-2004, as the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship. Among the other awards she has received are the Alan Sharlin Fellowship in Social History (2005-06), the Medieval Association of the Pacific Founder’s Prize, first place (2006), as well as teaching awards from the University of California, Berkeley where for seven years she taught courses including: Western Civilization, both Medieval and Early Modern to the Present, Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, Women in the Renaissance, Historiography, Italian Language, and Works of Dante. She also taught World History at Menlo College from 2006-2007 . Dr. Kaborycha was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow with the Medici Archive Project from 2007-2010 and Jean-François Malle Fellow, at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence from 2010-2011. She is currently at work on her second book, a monograph on Florentine zibaldoni.

Selected Publications:

A Short History of Renaissance Italy, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010

 “Expressing a Habsburg Sensibility in the Medici Court: The Grand Duchess Giovanna d'Austria’s Patronage and Public Image in Florence,” in Artful Allies, Medici Women as Cultural Mediators 1533-1743  Atti del Convegno a Villa I Tatti 15-17 October 2008, Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2012.

“Transvestites, Anchorites, Wives, and Martyrs: The Lives of Female Saints as Read by Fifteenth-Century Florentine Women,” in Chronica, Spring 2006, no. 65

“Brigida Baldinotti and Her Two Epistles in Quattrocento Florentine Manuscripts,” in Speculum, forthcoming

“Florentine Avvisi from the Court of James I Stuart,” in Grand Ducal Tuscany: Medici Power and Representation in Early Modern Florence, Viella, forthcoming

 
Selected Conferences & Lectures:

“ ‘Cultural Literacy’ in Quattrocento Florence: The Pollini family and their books,” Thought Worlds of Renaissance Readers Villa I Tatti, Florence, 31 May, 2011

“The social world of Renaissance Florentines as viewed through their zibaldoni anthologies,” Reading Anthologies in Renaissance Europe, Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Trinity College, Dublin, July, 2010
 

"Relations between Tuscany and England under Cosimo I de’ Medici”
Renaissance Society of America Conference, Venice, April, 2010 

   
“Among rare men: Bronzino and homoerotic culture at the Medici court”
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, March 2010

“Johanna of Austria: A grand duchess asserts her authority at the Medici court”
Renaissance Society of America Conference, Chicago, 2008

Website: www.lisakaborycha.com