Account of the RSA Annual Meeting in Venice 8-10 April 2010

This year, the MAP made its presence felt at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America with a variety of panels spanning politics, military history, art history, religion, diplomacy, and news. The following is a list of the five panels, the largest number ever, sponsored by the MAP:

CIVIL AND MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE AGE OF COSIMO I DE’ MEDICI
Chair: CARLA D’ARISTA FRAMPTON, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
FRANCESCA FUNIS, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
Livorno’s Defensive Ramparts in the Age of Cosimo I de’ Medici
MAURIZIO ARFAIOLI, INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR, EMPOLI
The Diplomacy of Military Architecture: The Case of Chiappino Vitelli (1519–75).

THE MEDICI AND GIFTS, CA. 1550–CA. 1650
Chair: PETER CHERRY, UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, TRINITY COLLEGE
ANATOLE TCHIKINE, UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, TRINITY COLLEGE
Art, Trade, and Diplomacy: Sixteenth-Century Florentine Fountains as Commodities and Gifts
SARAH BERCUSSON, QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Artichokes, Peas, and Flowers: Food as Gifts in the Sixteenth-Century Medici Court
LISA GOLDENBERG STOPPATO, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
Medici Portraits as Gifts in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries.

POWER AND DIPLOMACY: DUKE COSIMO I DE’ MEDICI AND ITALY THROUGH THE LETTERS OF THE MEDICEAN ARCHIVE
Chair: BRIAN SANDBERG, NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
ELENA BRIZIO, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
The She-Wolf and the Lion: Siena and the Enemy Cosimo I (1537–59)
STEFANO DALL’AGLIO, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
The World Seen from the Lagoon: Florentine Politics and Culture in the Republic of Venice in the First Years of Cosimo I.
FRANCESCO MARTELLI, ARCHIVIO DI STATO DI FIRENZE
“Frontiera opportuna alle principali provincie d’Europa,” il rilievo di Milano nella rete
diplomatica messa in piedi da Cosimo I dei Medici.

NEWS OF THE MEDICI COURT: RELATIONS BETWEEN TUSCANY AND ENGLAND DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
Chair: BRENDAN DOOLEY, INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, BREMEN
NICHOLAS BROWNLEES, UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE
A Medici Agent’s Newsletters to Florence during the Leghorn Crisis of 1653
LISA KABORYCHA, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
News from Medici Agents in London 1593-1615   
STEFANO VILLANI, UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PISA
Amerigo Salvetti and Giovanni Salvetti Antelminelli: Tuscan Residents in London 1617–80.

AFTER SAVONAROLA: PROBLEMS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING
Chair: SHEILA CAROL BARKER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ROME
ALESSIO ASSONITIS, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
Fra Bartolomeo della Porta, Piagnone Patronage, and Savonarolan Simplicitas
NICOLETTA BALDINI, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
Perugino e i Piagnoni: il caso di Iacopo Borgianni
MINA GREGORI, PRESIDENT, FONDAZIONI LONGHI
Raffaello e la committenza piagnona. In addition to MAP-sponsored panels, a number of our fellows, past and present, presented papers at the RSA on outside panels. Among these were: ROBERTA PICCINELLI, THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT Per “particolar nostro interesse”: The Mediation Activity of Giovanni Benedetto and Salvatore Castiglione for the Mantuan Court of the Gonzaga Nevers. SHEILA CAROL BARKER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ROME
Theories of the Gendered Response to Plague in the Art and Medicine of Early Modern Italy.