Maurizio Arfaioli

Maurizio Arfaioli was born in Piedmont in 1967 and grew up in Tuscany. He received a B.A. (Honors) in Renaissance History at the University of Pisa in 1995 and completed a Ph.D. in History at the University of Warwick (UK) in 2002. In 2005 he joined the Medici Archive Project as a three-year Project Fellowship, and again in 2010 as Senior Research Fellow. His research interests focus on the political, social and cultural history of Renaissance and early modern Italy, with a strong emphasis on military history. In particular, Arfaioli has studied the rise of the Florentine military system under the reign of Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574), and the role played by the Italian troops in Spanish service in early modern European conflicts. He has also been working on military iconography in frescoes, paintings and engravings, as well as the imagery in contemporary epic poetry, as historical sources. He is currently working on a study on a study of military imagery in the Salone dei Cinquecento of Palazzo Vecchio, and on a the history of the Italian regiments in Spanish service in the Low Countries during the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648).

Selected Publications:

The Black Bands of Giovanni: Infantry and Diplomacy During the Italian Wars (1526-1528) Pisa: Ed. Plus, 2005
 

"The Inconsistent Knight: Military and Iconographic maniera in Vasari’s Battle of Marciano,” Source: Notes in the History of Art, 1-XXX (2010)

“Arbedo, Battle of (1422, 30 June),” in Medieval Warfare and Military Technology, ed. Clifford J. Rogers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010

“Pisa, Siege of (1406),” in Medieval Warfare and Military Technology, ed. Clifford J. Rogers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010

“Medici, Giovanni de” [Giovanni of the Black Bands], in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2009, vol. LXXIII, pp. 67-70 

“Maramaldo, Fabrizio” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2007, vol. LXIX, pp. 398-401
 

Selected Conferences & Lectures:

"Bastion of Empire; the terzo vecchio of the Italian Infantry," Italian Academy at Columbia University, New York, 20 April 2011

“The Diplomacy of Military Architecture,” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Venice, April 2010

“Rethinking Mars: the Duchy of Florence as Regional Military Power,” A Tale of Two Cities: Venice and Florence in the Renaissance, University of Warwick in Venice, December 2009

“His Father’s Son: Cosimo I de’ Medici and the Rise of the Florentine Military,” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Chicago, April 2008

“Giovanni de’ Medici, detto ‘delle Bande Nere’: l’invenzione di un capostipite,” Il Genio Fiorentino, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence, May 2006
 

Website: www.maurizioarfaioli.net