Notes from the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow - December 2009

My Medici Archive Project Odyssey

When I first arrived in Florence a little over two years ago, little could I know where my research at the Medici Archive Project would take me. I expected to study documents that would transport me back into the court of Cosimo I, where I would listen in on the gossip of courtiers in the corridors of the Palazzo Vecchio, look over the shoulders of bureaucrats in the Uffizi, and if I was lucky overhear murmurs of conspiracy in Florence’s Mercato Nuovo. Well-versed in Florentine history I felt confident that I would step into a familiar world. No sooner had I unpacked my bags however, than my odyssey began.

As I started reading the correspondence of Johanna of Habsburg, bride of Francesco I de’ Medici, I was carried away into the court of Johanna’s father, the Emperor Ferdinand in Vienna and Innsbruck. When Francesco crossed the Alps in 1565 laden with gifts to woo Johanna, I was there. As he and the Emperor bonded over hunting stories, I listened in, marveling at how many languages European rulers were required to know in those days. I watched Johanna and her sisters with their austere religious practices that so startled the Italian courtiers and overheard the Princess haltingly practice her first words in Italian in the garden one summer evening at Schloss Ambras.

After reading all the correspondence of the Grand Duchess, I moved forward in time and crossed the Channel to enter the England of William Shakespeare. The Medici had agents across the world who kept them informed of the latest events and I wanted to know what it was that interested them in the distant island kingdom of Britain. As I stood at the docks of London in 1612, overcome by the sight of stevedores unloading bales of spices from Indonesia and tobacco from Virginia, I realized I was witnessing the birth of the British Empire. I followed solemn processions to Westminster Abbey, listened to Parliamentary debates, and watched the accomplices to Thomas Overbury’s murder swing from the hangman’s noose at Tyburn.

Now as I enter the final year of my fellowship I have crossed back to the continent to read Florentine ambassadorial correspondence from the court of Louis XIV. I have just stepped into the halls of preening, beribboned courtiers at Versailles in 1697. This morning I glimpsed the Sun King himself as he received the Savoyard ambassador. Will I hear strains of Lully? Verses of Moliere? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anymore, as I have realized that it is the journey itself through the archival documents that is exciting. Will I ever return to Florence - my Ithaca? Who knows? The documents take you where they will and never fail to deliver valuable insights.

Lisa Kaborycha, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow has completed her book A Short History of Renaissance Italy, which will be published by Prentice Hall in September, 2010.