The Medici Archive Project: General Information

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MAURIZIO ARFAIOLI Research Fellow (Project Fellow, 2005-2008), completed a PhD at the University of Warwick (U.K.) in 2002 with a dissertation on Italian Renaissance military history. This research formed the basis of his recent book, The Black Bands of Giovanni: Infantry and Diplomacy During the Italian Wars (1526-1528), published by the Pisa University Press in 2005. During the 2003-2004 academic year, Dr. Arfaioli was Fellow of Villa I Tatti (The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies), with a research project on the Italian troops in Spanish service in the Low Countries during the Eighty Years' War. As a MAP fellow, Dr. Arfaioli is completing a full-length study of the life and career of Giovan Luigi 'Chiappino' Vitelli (1520-1575), one of the most famous military leaders of the sixteenth century, becoming Captain General of the Infantry of Cosimo I de' Medici and general in the Spanish Army of Flanders.

SHEILA BARKER Research Fellow (Samuel H. Kress Curatorial Fellow, 2005-2007, Project Fellow 2008) completed a PhD in Art History at Columbia University in 2002, with a dissertation entitled, Art in a Time of Danger: Urban VIII's Rome and the Plague of 1629-34. She undertook a new but related research project with Poussin, Plague and Early Modern Medicine, published in the Art Bulletin and awarded the College Art Association's 2005 Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize. At the Medici Archive Project, Dr. Barker is pursuing the humanistic implications of seventeenth-century medicine with the study, New Medicine" and the Culture of Health at the Medici Court, 1609-1670.

ELENA BRIZIO Research Fellow (Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena Fellow, 2006-2007) completed her PhD in Medieval History at the University of Florence in 1993 and also completed a Masters in Gender studies in 2003 . With the Medici Archive Project, Dr. Brizio will continue to develop her interest in renaissance history and womens studies, focusing on Sienese and Florentine Women: Their Role in their Kinship Group after the fall of the Republic (1555).

STEFANO D'ALLAGLIO (Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena Fellow, 2007-2008) completed his PhD in the History of Early Modern Europe at the University of Rome in 2003 and later he was a Fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, and at the Institut d'Histoire de la Réformation of Geneva. He has published numerous books on the History of Renaissance Florence, such as Vulnera diligentis (Florence, 2002), Savonarola e il savonarolismo (Bari, 2005), L'eremita e il sinodo (Florence, 2006) and Savonarola in Francia (Turin, 2006). With the Medici Archive Project, Dr. Dall’Aglio will continue to develop his interest in the religious culture of Renaissance Tuscany, focusing on Politics and Religion in Siena: Conformity and Dissent Before and After the Medicean Occupation 1537-1574.

FRANCESCA FUNIS Research Fellow (DeRoy Testamentary Foundation Fellow, 2005-2008) qualified as an architect at the University of Florence in 1999. She then went on to earn a PhD in the History of Architecture in 2003, with a dissertation entitled "Il Corridoio Vasariano: forma e costruzione". During the 2004-2005 academic year, Dr. Funis participated in a collaborative research project organized by the University of Udine, focusing on foreign communities and urban development in Livorno during the Grand-Ducal Period. As a DeRoy Testamentary Foundation Fellow at the Medici Archive Project, Dr Funis is working on the Greek settlements in Livorno from 1560 to1650 (the results of this research have been published in two articles) and is continuing her studies on the architecture of Giorgio Vasari (she has published a book entitled “Deliberazioni di partiti della fabbrica de' 13 magistrati” with a transcription of a manuscript dealing with the construction of the Uffizi).

LISA KABORYCHA (National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, 2007-2010), native of the San Francisco Bay Area, received her B.A. in Comparative Literature, M.A. in Italian Studies, and Ph.D.in History at the University of California, Berkeley. While studying as a Fulbright fellow in Florence during 2003/2004, she read over three hundred miscellaneous manuscripts known as "zibaldoni." Her doctoral thesis Copying Culture: Fifteenth-Century Florentines and Their Zibaldoni explores the popular practice of compiling extracts from a wide variety of writings including works of poetry, religion, philosophy, folk remedies, and moral guidance. In addition to her work with the Medici project, Dr. Kaborycha is currently working on a book on Renaissance Italy for Prentice Hall. At the Medici Archive Project, she will pursue her interest in social customs and daily life at the Medici Court in the sixteenth century.

MARK ROSEN Research Fellow (National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, 2006-2009) completed his PhD at the University of California at Berkeley in December 2004 with a dissertation on the history of cartography in late Renaissance Florence. He will continue his work in this area with the Medici Archive Project during 2006-2009, with the research topic Mapping Tuscanys Cities in the late Cinquecento and Early Seicento.