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Home » @theMediciArchiveProject

@theMediciArchiveProject

On the feast day of St. John the Baptist—which is On the feast day of St. John the Baptist—which is celebrated today, 24 June—the various communities subject to Florentine rule would traditionally offer gifts to the Duke of Florence. In 1534, Alessandro de' Medici had a letter penned thanking the various donors, which included a list of their gifts. What, then, was a reasonable offering to make?

Apparently the best option—chosen by Pisa, Pietrasanta, Prato, Poppi, Barga, the Casentino, Fiuizano, Pistoia, Bibbiena, and Fucecchio—was fish, with trout being the preferred variety. San Gimignano instead offered Vernaccia, a local white wine, while Volterra went for veal. It seems that Alessandro would be eating seafood for the foreseeble future!

Buon San Giovanni!

ASF, Mediceo del Principato 181, f. 283r
MAP DocID: 15552
Transcribed by Anatole Tchikine
Big Fish Eat Little Fish, after a drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Pieter van der Heyden and published by Hieronymus Cock, 1557. Met Museum

#fish #pesce #trout #sangiovanni #festadisangiovanni #gift #giftgiving #seafood #fruttidimare #sea #ocean #mediterranean #feastofstjohnthebaptist #johnthebaptist #sangiovannibattista #tuscany #toscana #Pisa #Pietrasanta #Prato, #Poppi #Barga #Casentino #Pistoia #Bibbiena #Fucecchio
How are you surviving the heat waves that have alr How are you surviving the heat waves that have already hit Europe this summer? On 5 June 1540, Rosso di Filippo de' Medici wrote to his relative, Cosimo I in Florence, noting that "the heat reached us here [in Rome] on 20 May, so started taking my boots off on 1 June and now I've also taken off my jacket." Fashion clearly suffered in favour of comfort. At least, however, Rosso wrote that he could "enjoy the cool weather with my wife." But the heat seems to have had a strange effect: We kiss each other with such great fervour—especially her, and her mouth has swollen up so much that I think some spider must have bitten her."
One has to take precautions in the weather, then—so watch out for spiders and fits of great passion while avoiding the heat!

ASF, Mediceo del Principato 343, f. 258r-259v
Transcribed by Alessio Assonitis
Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne Dutch, A Spider, late seventeenth century. Met Museum.

#summer #heatwave #heat #summerheat #weather #climate #summervacation #summerholiday #fashion #renaissance #earlymodern #italy #italia #florence #firenze #rome #roma #spider #romance
CALL FOR PAPERS: “Sacred Conversations”: The Excha CALL FOR PAPERS: “Sacred Conversations”: The Exchange of Objects between Monastic and Secular Courts in Early Modern Central and Eastern Europe
International Interdisciplinary Conference - Abbey of Ottobeuren, Bavaria, Germany, 7-8 May 2027
Organised by Collecting Central Europe, The Medici Archive Project (Florence), and IAH Czech Academy of Sciences (Prague)

In early modern Central and Eastern Europe, monasteries and courts communicated across confessional, political and social boundaries through the exchange of objects—carrying diplomatic weight, devotional meaning, and artistic prestige. Building on the workshops ‘The Medici and the Princely Courts of Central and Eastern Europe: Art, Diplomacy and Material Culture’ (Florence, February 2025) and ‘Talking Stones: Objects and Materiality in Early Modern Central and Eastern Europe’ (Prague, April 2026), this conference further explores the dynamics of communication through objects in Central and Eastern Europe during the early modern period. It broadens this inquiry to encompass the full communicative range of sacred material culture and materiality—from courtly gift-giving to liturgical practice, from monastic collecting to the contemporary mediation of ecclesiastical heritage.

Ottobeuren—seat of powerful prince abbots and home to the newly reconceived Klostermuseum—offers a site-specific setting to consider Central Europe as a crossroads of diplomacy and communication through the building of collections and knowledge, and to reflect on how monastic collections, architecture and museum practice shape the ongoing life of sacred objects.

We particularly welcome contributions addressing the sacrality of objects and their circulation between princes of the Church and secular courts—from the Italian states to the Holy Roman Empire and beyond—and from the early modern period to the present. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are encouraged (e.g., Art History, History of Collecting, History of Science, Ecclesiastical History, Museum/Heritage Studies, Digital Humanities).

For more information, including how to submit an abstract, click the link in our bio.

#callforpapers #cfp #history #arthistory
This summer, MAP’s Center for Women in Renaissance This summer, MAP’s Center for Women in Renaissance Archives is delving deeper into the manuscript treatise ON THE DIGNITY AND NOBILITY OF WOMEN. Written in Florence by Cristofano Bronzini and largely completed by 1622, this encyclopedic manuscript comprises 13,000 handwritten pages distributed over 36 tomes.

Since 2019, this project has digitized this massive text, which remains the largest written work in the tradition of debates about the nature and virtues of women—the “querelle des femmes”. Its contents include dialogues of pro-women arguments, ethnographic observations of women all over the world, and thousands of pages that have yet to be read by modern scholars. 

Bronzini’s discussions of the roles and accomplishments of women are paramount to this project’s aims, given that so little of his manuscript has been studied. The manuscript has remarkably provided the earliest written biographies for women artists such as Giovanna Garzoni and Artemisia Gentileschi. Bronzini also personally knew several of the artists he wrote about, including Lavinia Fontana and Arcangela Paladini. This summer, the Center for Women in Renaissance Archives will be researching the nature of this treatise’s creation and its contents, with hopes of uncovering as much information from this invaluable source as possible!

#querelledesfemmes #womanquestion #history #arthistory #women #womenshistory #renaissance #earlymodern #artemisiagentileschi #bronzini #cristofanobronzini #digitization #digitalhumanities #humanities #laviniafontana #arcangelapaladini #womenartists #womanartist
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