Kathryn Griffith

Kathryn Griffith is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the University of Southern California, specializing in early modern Italy. Her dissertation project examines the movements and metamorphoses of gold in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy, both as a material central to the monetary economy and a medium employed by a range of artisan professions. She focuses on how processes of material transformation shaped ideas about wealth and value. During her fellowship at MAP, Kathryn will be working with the inventories and account books of the Medici Guardaroba, which document the acquisition and distribution of raw materials to court artisans as well as the completion of finished objects. In particular, her research will focus on gold-wrapped threads, which were essential to Florence’s silk industry and court consumption of gold. In addition to her academic work, Kathryn has held curatorial and research internships at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Clark Art Institute, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. Prior to USC, Kathryn earned an M.A. in the History of Art from Williams College and the Clark Art Institute and her B.A. from Wellesley College.