Senza categoria – The Medici Archive Project

Workshop – The Invention of the Medici: Historiographies, Histories, and Stories (1781-2024) – 23-24 January 2025

23-25 January 2025

The Medici Archive Project – Palazzo Alberti, Florence

Both the merchant-bankers of the Quattrocento and the grand dukes of the later centuries have been the focus of countless scholarly studies that have shed light on the history and legacy of this dynasty. Thanks to the vastness of the Medici archives, modern historians have been able to make sense of the mechanisms that shaped Medici statecraft, diplomatic engagement, and cultural patronage. Even more extraordinary has been the insight gained into their private lives. The letters which they wrote and received—as well as the ones in which they are prominently featured—provide us with penetrating portraits of their passions and ambitions, their education and scholarship, their desires and taste, their physical maladies and religious observance, and their everyday interactions with each other and with the world inside and outside their palaces and villas.

Despite the immense corpora of archival records (much of which is now available on-line) regarding the Medici, both academic and popular historiography are plagued by warped, biased, erroneous, and even invented accounts. This workshop aims not only to identify and debunk these “fake stories”, but also to understand how and why they became canonized in mainstream historiographical narratives. We hope to discuss how the Medici were reinvented to serve political agendas; recalibrated to bolster national(istic) historiographical traditions; reintegrated into academic discourse after periods of damnatio memoriae; and ignored or even ghosted for political reasons after centuries of glorification.

We invite Medici-related proposals for papers addressing topics such as:

Jacopo Riguccio Galluzzi
The Risorgimento
British Historiographical Tradition
French Historiographical Tradition
The Medici and Pre-Raphaelite & Romantic Painters
The Ventennio
The Medici in the Era of Political Correctness
The Memory of the Dynasty in Tuscan Museums
Literary, Operatic, and Cinematic Medici

To be considered, please send the following material by 1 December 2024 to education@medici.org: (1) full name, affiliation and email address; (2) paper title (15-word max); (3) abstract text (200 words max); and (4) short curriculum vitae/bio (200 words max). The workshop will take place in person (and NOT ONLINE) in Florence at the Medici Archive Project, Palazzo Alberti. The preferred conference language is English. Papers should not exceed 20 minutes, better if 15. Selected papers will be included in a volume of essays published with the MAP academic books series with Brepols/Harvey Miller.

Call For Papers – Workshop: Deadline 15 October 2024 – The Medici and the Princely Courts of Central and Eastern Europe: Art, Diplomacy, and Material Culture

CALL FOR PAPERS
THE MEDICI AND THE PRINCELY COURTS OF CENTRAL AND
EASTERN EUROPE: ART, DIPLOMACY, AND MATERIAL CULTURE
WORKSHOP – FLORENCE, PALAZZO ALBERTI – 7 FEBRUARY 2025

Organized by the Medici Archive Project, Connected Central European Worlds, 1500-1700
and Collecting Central Europe

Communication between courts and cities could be achieved by several means, including the
exchange of objects, artists, diplomats and news. Exchange was rarely a linear back-andforth
but could follow all sorts of patterns. In early modern Europe, it included the nascent
courts in Italy, as well as central and eastern European courts among others.
Our workshop will focus on courtly exchange via objects, such as diplomatic gifts between
early modern rulers to establish rarely investigated patterns of connectivity extending
throughout eastern and northern Europe. We aim to demonstrate that by the early sixteenth
century, the Medici court, the Holy Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania, Hungarian territories,
and beyond used objects and artists to maintain contact and convey diplomatic messages.
While some courts may have developed more direct routes of communication, at various
times the courts at Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, Prague, Cracow, and Warsaw played
important nodal roles.
We invite proposals for papers addressing topics such as
• The presence of Florentine artists at Central and Eastern European courts and their
influence
• The presence and display of Central and Eastern European objects in the Medici
collections and their impact
• The role of artists as brokers between courts
• The role of women as mediators
• The agency of patronage between courts
• Trendsetters in matters of collecting and display
To be considered, please send the following material by 15 October 2024 to
education@medici.org: (1) full name, affiliation and email address; (2) paper title (15-word
max); (3) abstract text (200 words max); and (4) short curriculum vitae/bio (200 words
max). We welcome proposals from established scholars, as well as work in progress from
advanced doctoral candidates. The workshop will take place in person in Florence at the
Medici Archive Project, Palazzo Alberti. The conference language is English. Papers should
not exceed 20 minutes.