JULY NEWSLETTER

We are excited to announce the Pilot Online Course in Italian Paleography is now posted to our website at http://www.medici.org/message/italian-paleography-online-course and scheduled to start on October 12th. The MAP team has spent much time working on this unique course over the past few months. In May and June, I met with Alessio Assonitis, MAP Research Director, Lorenzo Allori, MAP Technology Director, and the two course instructors, Father Luciano Cinelli and Dr. Sheila Barker to discuss the mechanics of the course, the selection of documents to be posted online, and several technological issues.

We decided to start the course with an interesting and easy-to-read late letter by Michelangelo to be compared with two other earlier ones by him. The comparison between these three documents will also dramatically reveal how writing conventions, abbreviations, and handwriting evolved during the artist’s own lifetime. The course will continue with documents that are progressively more difficult to decipher, creating challenges that are sure to stimulate and inspire all participants. There has been much interest in this course, therefore we urge all interested readers to enroll as soon as possible. Because this is the only course in the world to offer online instruction in Italian Paleography, it will be a valuable first step to future course offerings. It is with much gratitude that we acknowledge that this course is partially funded by a generous grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

We are also extremely honored to have just received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the planning phase for the design and implementation of a new interactive modular database for The Medici Grand Ducal Archive: Documentary Sources for Arts and Humanities. By converting its data entry application to a state-of-the-art platform MAP will be able to provide international access to a growing repository of historical data. Another goal of the project is to provide extensibility and integrated searching of MAP’s Documentary Sources data with other related data repositories. This project will upgrade and improve the data entry system that manages the indexing of the 6,429 volumes of Grand Ducal correspondence in the Florentine National Archive in Florence.

The proposed new MAP database will include digitized versions of the most important documents, and will also contain descriptions, tags, and several forums with different levels of access where participants can discuss, interpret, and edit the manuscripts. The new database would also enable MAP to work with a larger number of off-site fellows who would be hired to contribute to the database from their own homes and institutions.

We are particularly grateful to Lorenzo Allori, our Technology Director, and to Donald Waters, Mellon’s Program Officer for Scholarly Communications. Their expertise in the digital world helped shape the discussions that resulted in bringing this project to fruition.

MAP will be in attendance at the 2010 Renaissance Society of America Conference that will take place in Venice April 8-10th. MAP will sponsor five panels featuring a great variety of topics, including: the political relationship between Florence and Italian and European Courts; the crisis of Florentine painting during the early Cinquecento; gift culture at the Medici court in the sixteenth century; England and Florence at the time of Shakespeare; and civil and military architecture in the age of Cosimo. http://www.rsa.org/meetings/annualmeeting.php

Aside from MAP’s current fellows at http://www.medici.org/fellowship-program/current-fellows, an impressive roster of past MAP fellows and staff, graduate students, and notable scholars will be involved in these panels including past MAP Research Coordinator, Brendan Dooley (University College Cork), and past Fellow, Anatole Tchikine (Trinity College Dublin). MAP’s Vice-Chair Carla D’Arista Frampton will be chairing a panel. We are honored to also include Nicoletta Baldini, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz; Sarah Bercusson, Queen Mary College, University of London; Nicholas Brownlees, Università di Firenze; Peter Cherry, Trinity College Dublin; Mina Gregori, Università di Firenze; Francesco Martelli, Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Shannon N. Pritchard, The University of Georgia, Athens; Stefano Villani ,Università di Pisa.

Additionally MAP is planning various other events in Venice, including a MAP Board meeting.

The Franklin Institute has surpassed its attendance goals for Galileo, The Medici, and the Age of Astronomy, which will run through September 7th. There is still time to make the pilgrimage to Philadelphia to see this remarkable exhibition before it returns to Italy. Please see http://www.medici.org/exhibitions for further details and http://www.medici.org/press for reviews.

Finally, time goes fast and on July 31st the bell chimed to remind me that I already had been at MAP for six months! This was an exciting period during which we were able to start new interesting projects and insure the support of major foundations. I must thank MAP’s Board of Trustees, and Martha McGeary Snider, its Chair, for their unconditional support. My work was also made much easier by the efficiency and willingness to help of Alessio Assonitis and Lorenzo Allori. Finally a special thanks to Rachel Harms, our indefatigable administrator who, as our Chair says, “is the glue who keeps us all together.”

Manfredi Piccolomini
President and Cultural Director