Online Course in Italian Paleography and Archival Studies

The Medici Archive Project has launched its first Online Course in Italian Paleography and Archival Studies. Made possible by grants from The Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, this free-of-charge pilot course is designed to increase access to the wealth of information contained in manuscript historical materials, particularly those from late-fifteenth- through seventeenth-century Tuscany. This 13-week online course running from October 12, 2009 to January 10, 2010 teaches the requisite skills to read historical Italian writings, and offers a broad introduction to the nature of Italian archives. From the letters of Michelangelo to the inventories of the Medici family, the digitized documents used to train the course’s participants in paleographic skills will also expose them to a wide range of document types useful for art historical research.

The Course Instuctors are Dr. Sheila Barker and Father Luciano Cinelli, O.P.

Sheila Barker (B.A., 1993, Amherst College; M.A., 1996, Columbia University; M. Phil., 1997, Columbia University; and Ph. D., 2002, Columbia University) is an art historian specializing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian art. Since completing her dissertation, “Art in a Time of Danger: Urban VIII’s Rome and the Plague of 1629-1634,” her post-doctoral research has been supported by an Allen Whitehill Clowes Curatorial Fellowship at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (2003), a Smithsonian American Art Museum Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2005), a Samuel H. Kress Curatorial Fellowship (2005, renewed 2006), and a Medici Archive Project Fellowship (2007). Her article, “Poussin, Plague, and Early Modern Medicine,” (Art Bulletin 86, n.4), was awarded the College Art Association’s Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize. In addition, she has contributed essays to the following books: Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800, exh. cat. (Worcester Art Museum, 2005); La Peste a Roma, 1656-1657 (Roma moderna e contemporanea, 2006); Piety and Plague: From Byzantium to the Baroque (Truman State University Press, 2007); The Papacy since 1500: from Italian Prince to Universal Pastor (Cambridge University Press, in press); and Invisible Women (The Florentine Press, in press).

Father Luciano Cinelli, O. P., completed a laurea (cum laude) in Literature at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 1995 with a thesis entitled, "Oratoria e politica a Roma nel Quattrocento. I panegirici di S. Tommaso d’Aquino alla Minerva." The following year, on September 29, 1996, Father Luciano Cinelli took the Domincan Habit. In 2000, he earned a B.A. in Philosophy (magna cum laude) at the Studio Filosofico Bolognese, and in 2005 he was awarded a License in Theology from the University of Fribourg. His diploma from the Scuola di Archivistica, Paleografia e Diplomatica “Anna Maria Enriquez Agnoletti” at the State Archive in Florence was granted in 2007. His articles appear in numerous scholarly journals including Memorie Domenicane, Quaderni medievali, and Divus Thomas. He has also contributed essays to the following books: San Pietro martire da Verona domenicano (1220c-1252), Convegno storico nel 750° anniversario della sua morte (Centro culturale “Alle Grazie”); La città degli angeli (Ermes, 2003); and Osanna Andreasi da Mantova (1449-1505), Convegno internazionale di studio (Casandreasi, 2006). His entries on “Mannelli, Luca”, “Mansueti, Leonardo”, “Massimino da Salerno”, and “Mattei, Leonardo da Udine” are published in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Father Cinelli currently serves as chief archivist of the Provincia Romana di Santa Caterina da Siena, which includes the archive of Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Rome); he is editor-in-chief of the historical journal Memorie Domenicane; and he is director of the Biblioteca Domenicana at Santa Maria Novella (Florence).