Meet the Fellows

SAMUEL H. KRESS FELLOW 2024-25

Noah Margulis
Samuel H. Kress Fellow 2024-25

Noah Margulis is a PhD Candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, studying the visual arts of early modern Southern Europe. His current research addresses the place of prints and printmaking within workshop practices and collaborative enterprises in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italy. His dissertation examines techniques of copying and transmission in the drawings and prints of Roman artists and their schools. Noah completed his B.A. at Oberlin College and his M.A. at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He is currently a graduate student fellow at NYU Florence, Villa la Pietra. In addition to his studies, he has held research positions and internships at Christie’s New York, the Morgan Library & Museum, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, the Frick Collection, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has taught art history and academic writing at New York University, the City College of New York, and Fordham University.

EVA SCHLER FELLOWS 2024-25

Shanti Lara Giovannetti-Singh

Eva Schler Fellow 2024-25

Shanti Lara Giovannetti-Singh is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. She holds an MSt in English 1550-1700 from the University of Oxford, and a BA(Hons) in English from UCL. Her doctoral research examines monstrosity in early modern textual and visual culture. Closely analysing Renaissance paintings, by artists such as Arcimboldo, Bronzino and Vasari, alongside works of poetics by Philip Sidney and Giambattista Guarini, her research examines how monstrous creatures influence and inform Renaissance aesthetic theory. In doing so, her doctoral research strives to expand and complicate how monstrosity was understood in early modern Europe. During her fellowship, Shanti will analyse archival material, such as clothing receipts, inventories, and letters to better understand the lived experiences of court dwarves in Renaissance Italy. Alongside her studies, Shanti has worked for the Fitzwilliam Museum, the BBC and the Guardian News and Media, and the ERC-funded project TIDE (Travel, Transculturality, and Identity in England, c. 1550 – 170

Sharifa Lookman

Eva Schler Fellow 2024-25

Sharifa Lookman is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, specializing in the art of early modern Italy. Sharifa received her M.A. in Italian Renaissance Art from Syracuse University in Florence and her B.A. in Art History from Wesleyan University. Focused on sculptural practice in the wake of Giambolognan industry, her doctoral research at Princeton is invested in the status and theoretical potential of the early modern assistant – as ‘invisible technician,’ ‘unoriginal genius,’ and, even, alter ego. It focuses on the figure of Antonio Susini (1558-1624) and seeks to clarify and prioritize his position and labor practices, both within and outside of the workshop, as well as his productive efforts, those ephemeral and still extant. As a fellow at MAP, Sharifa will continue to develop this project, homing in on Susini’s documentary footprint as well as account books, libri di botteghe, and recipe literature, writ large; in doing so, she hopes to ask how we write and recuperate a history of artistic process that prioritizes execution over design.

David Mesquita

Eva Schler Fellow 2024-25

David Mesquita is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon and a researcher at the Centre for Classical Studies. He holds a BA in Classical Studies (U. Lisbon, 2018) and, after earning an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship (EMJMDS), he holds a double MA degree in Classical Studies and Italian Studies, European Literary Cultures, and Linguistics (U. Lisbon and U. Bologna, 2021). Funded by the FCT, his Ph.D. project, titled Estêvão Rodrigues de Castro (1559-1638) as a ‘Liber scriptor neque ex Galeni servis’ in the controversies of his time, investigates Castro’s contributions to medical theory and practice and academic teaching under the Medici’s patronage in seventeenth-century Tuscany. At the MAP, David will investigate archival documentation related to Castro’s practice, teachings, students and intellectual circles, which will provide crucial insights into bridging the gap between medical theory and practice.

Alejandro Elizalde García

Eva Schler Fellow 2024-25

Alejandro Elizalde García obtained his Bachelor’s degree in “Historia del Arte” from the Universidad de Salamanca in 2018, which included an Erasmus Scholarship at the Università di Bologna and a Séneca Scholarship at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He earned a Master’s degree in “Estudios Avanzados en Historia del Arte Español” from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2019 and a Master’s degree in “Historia del Arte en la Edad Moderna” from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2022, supported by a research promotion grant for master’s studies (“Ayudas al Fomento de la Investigación”). Since then, he has been a PhD candidate in “Storia dell’Arte” at La Sapienza. Università di Roma –cotutelle agreement with the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid–, under the direction of Andrea Bacchi, Francesco Freddolini, and Juan Luis González. His research focuses on the presence, impact, and circulation of Italian sculpture in the courts of Charles II and Philip V of Spain (1665-1746). Some of the results of his research have been published in prestigious journals such as Goya and Bollettino d’Arte and presented at numerous international conferences, including the Museo Nacional del Prado’s “Programa Joven 2024”. During his Eva Schler Fellowship, Alejandro will investigate the diplomatic relations between Cosimo III and the Spanish monarchy in the field of sculpture.

BEATRICE SOLOMON FELLOWS 2024-25

Inbar Strul-Dabull
Beatrice Solomon Fellow 2024-25

Inbar Strul-Dabull is a Ph.D. candidate at Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv University. Her doctoral research focuses on gender and charity in Medicean Florence, with a particular emphasis on Montalvo’s educational institutions. The first, Ancille della Santissima Vergine, known as the Conventino, was dedicated to sheltering and educating underprivileged girls. The second, Ancille della Santissima Trinità , known as La Quiete, was a boarding school geared toward educating girls of the Florentine elite. Inbar holds an M.A. in General History from Tel Aviv University, completed summa cum laude, where her thesis explored everyday life in the Convent of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. She also possesses a B.A. in General History and Art History from Tel Aviv University, both completed with summa cum laude honors. Inbar’s research has been supported by various prestigious scholarships and grants, including The Foundation for Higher Education & Culture, Thomas Arthur Arnold Fund for Excellence in History, and Chutick Scholarship for Outstanding Female Doctoral Students. She has presented her work at international conferences and has been invited to give lectures on topics ranging from convent life in post-Tridentine Italy to charitable institutions in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Her project at MAP explores understudied aspects of Medici princesses’ education, focusing on Maria de’ Medici, the future queen of France, as a case study. It seeks to contextualize Maria’s education within broader patterns of elite Florentine female education. Subsequently, it will reframe our understanding of the role of the princesses’ education in shaping the Medici dynasty’s ambitions within the broader political context of Europe.

Massimo Bomboni
Beatrice Solomon Fellow 2024-25

Massimo Bomboni is a PhD candidate in Global History of Empires at the University of Turin, under the supervision of Prof. Michela Catto and Prof. Catia Antunes (Leiden University). His research delves into the relations between the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Dutch Republic during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with a particular focus on Ferdinando I de’ Medici’s network of agents in the Netherlands and their pivotal role in shaping Tuscan political and economic strategies on a global scale. Massimo’s interest in this topic began during his Master’s degree in Historical Sciences at the University of Florence. His thesis, titled “Fra la Toscana, i Paesi Bassi e la Moscovia: I Lus, agenti del progetto politico globale di Ferdinando I de’ Medici,” examined the Dutch merchant family of the Lus as key intermediaries for the Grand Duke in Northern Europe. His scholarly interests span a range of fields, including economic, diplomatic, maritime, and military history. During his time at MAP, Massimo will work on the relations between Tuscany and the Dutch Republic in the central decades of the 17th century, covering the rules of Cosimo II and Ferdinando II de’ Medici.

Rebecca Cappelli
Beatice Solomon Fellow 2024-25

Rebecca Cappelli obtained her Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Siena in 2024: her master’s thesis was entitled “Ornaron la terra e poi le stelle”: tra potere, complotti e ascesa la vita di Lucrezia de Medici Salviati, “La maggior di Lorenzo inclita figlia”. In 2021 and 2023, she had the opportunity to complete an Internship at MAP. Her current research project, which would be developed in a PhD project, continues her research on powerful women in Renaissance Italy and focuses on Elena di Jacopo Salviati (1500-1552) regent of Piombino on behalf of her son Jacopo VI Appiano between 1545 and 1548. During her fellowship at MAP, she will explore wide-ranging archival materials to understand the role and the strategies of Elena Salviati in seeking to control her domains through family intrigues and diplomatic alliances.

Miguel Soto Garrido
Beatice Solomon Fellow 2024-25

Miguel Soto Garrido is graduate in History (University of Malaga) and master’s degree (Autonomous University of Madrid). His research interests focus on Early Modern Mediterranean and relations between North Africa and Europe during the 16th and 17th century. His recent works focus on the ransom of captives, the Moorish of the Kingdom of Granada and the diplomacy between Spanish Monarchy and North African states. He participates in various national research projects linked to Early Modern Mediterranean and diplomacy. He is currently completing his PhD project entitled “Monarchy and Nobility. The 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia and the defense of the Strait of Gibraltar: authority, frontier and diplomacy (1576-1603)” supervised by M. Á Bunes Ibarra (CSIC) and J. J. Bravo Caro (UMA). At the international field, he has completed pre-doctoral stays at the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CHAM). His work at MAP explores the Atlantic dimension of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the transition from the 16th to the 17th century through the Marchena family network and the families of Sephardic origin employed by the Medici to channel their commercial and political interests in the North African sultanates.

VISITING FELLOWS 2024-25

Daniele Santarelli
Visiting Senior Fellow 2024-25

Daniele Santarelli is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”. He earned his Laurea in Humanities (“Lettere”) at University of Pisa and his Ph.D. in the History of Christianity (“Storia del Cristianesimo e delle Chiese”) at University of Padua. During his early career he had been affiliated with several institutions, including the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici and Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici (both in Naples), Université Michel de Montaigne in Bordeaux, University of Geneva, Casa de Velázquez and Universidad Complutense in Madrid, CNRS UMR 5190 LARHRA and CNRS UMR 5206 TRIANGLE in Lyon, where he remains a membre associé. He is a former fellow of the “Rita Levi Montalcini” Program for young researchers, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research. His research focuses on the political and religious history of the early modern Mediterranean world, particularly in the 16th century, with a strong emphasis on the application of digital technologies to the Humanities. He has extensive experience in the development and management of digital platforms and databases for the humanities and social sciences, including: Ereticopedia, Storia della Campania, Canriere Storico Filologico, and Edizioni Clori. Furthermore, he directs the cultural association linked to Edizioni Clori.

Hélène Soldini
Visiting Senior Fellow 2024-25

Hélène Soldini is currently Associate Professor in Italian Studies at the Université Lyon 3 Jean Moulin and affiliated at the research center IHRIM (Institut d’Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités – UMR 5317). She earned her postgraduate degree in Italian Studies at the Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle. In 2014 she received her PhD in History at the European Univerity Institute (Fiesole, Firenze) with a dissertation on « Donato Giannotti. Une biographie d’un républicain florentin du XVIe siècle ». After being recruited at the Université Lyon 3 in 2017, she has been working as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Languages from 2020 to 2024. For the academic year 2024-2025, she benefits from a « delegation CNRS » for her research project entitled « Rome dans la pensée républicaine florentine en exil ». Her research focuses on the history of florentine political thought, with a special interest in the republican fuorusciti who were forced to flee to Venice, Rome or Lyon after 1530. She aims at sudying the development of republican thought after the collapse of republican government, by studying the material history of political and historical books (be they manuscript or printed books). Her current research project focuses on the roman period of Donato Giannotti in order to highlight the reading of the newly discovered treatise « Della Republica ecclesiastica » (a cura di W.J. Connell, Einaudi, 2023).

Assunta Vitale
Visiting Senior Fellow 2023-25

Assunta Vitale is currently a research fellow at the Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici of the Università per Stranieri di Siena within the project The Medici Avvisi: The News that made us Modern (17th Century). She earned her undergraduate degree in Lettere Moderne at the Università degli studi di Napoli ‘Federico II’ and her postgraduate degree in Filologia Moderna at the Università per Stranieri di Siena. In 2022 she received her PhD in Linguistica Storia, Linguistica Educativa, Italianistica: l’italiano, le altre lingue e culture at the Università per Stranieri di Siena with a dissertation on Giovan Battista Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti. Her interests revolve around baroque literature and the Tuscan Accademies of the seventeenth century. Since 2018, she is a member of the research group Accademie Toscane del Seicento co-ordinated by CISS – Centro Internazionale di Studi sul Seicento. Her most recent publications are: La molteplicità: una categoria barocca per Lo cunto de li cunti (Pacini, 2022); Bambole e statue semoventi ne Lo Cunto de li Cunti, in Letteratura e Scienze. Atti delle sessioni parallele del XXIII Congresso dell’ADI, (Adi editore, 2021); «Levare il governo del regno d’Amore dalle mani de’ cavalieri e porlo nelle dame». L’Accademia delle Assicurate di Siena (1654-1714 ca.) in Le accademie toscane del Seicento fra arti, lettere e reti epistolari (Edizioni Università per Stranieri di Siena, 2020).

Florence Forte
Leverhulme Study Abroad Studentship 2022-25

Florence Forte is currently a PhD student at the Warburg Institute in London, on a one-year studentship at MAP funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She graduated with first-class honours from Nottingham (BA, Classics) followed by a PGCE at King’s College London and most recently, an MA in Cultural, Intellectual and Visual History with distinction from the Warburg Institute (2022). Her PhD project examines Isotta Nogarola’s Latin disputation on the relative sin of Adam and Eve (c. 1451) and its context, with a strong focus on new and old primary material. Besides this, Florence’s general interests include: the transmission of classical texts/images, fifteenth-century humanists and their educations, canon formation, interpretations of Genesis, dissenting voices and women’s writing (1400–1700). In her spare time, Florence organises courses and cultural events in Italy promoting the classical tradition with wider audiences via Forte Academy.

Anton Serdeczny

Senior Project Fellow 2021-25

Anton Serdeczny, doctor of History of the EPHE (2014, Sorbonne Paris, codirected by Ludwik Stomma), has taught modern history in Marne-la-Vallée, Neuchâtel, Moscow, and Aix-Marseille, and has been a visiting researcher at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, at the European University Institute in Florence and at the University of Erfurt. His work focuses on the interactions between religion, culture and science, particularly on the links between oro-ritual culture, especially carnival, and early modern medicine. He is the author of Du tabac pour le mort. Une histoire de la réanimation, published by Champ Vallon (2018), a book that examines the atypical development of medical reanimation in the early modern period, as an involuntary scholarly re-elaboration of carnivalesque rites and representations of resurrection. His current research addresses the role of the European oral and ritual cultural substratum in elites, and more specifically in the systems of representations related to intersex in the modern period. He is also organizing an experimental, collaborative, academic cell with Algerian academics to study the circulation of oral tales and motifs on either side of the Mediterranean.