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Home » @theMediciArchiveProject

@theMediciArchiveProject

MAP FORUM PRESENTS: A Roundtable on Global Florenc MAP FORUM PRESENTS: A Roundtable on Global Florence: The World of Francesco Carletti, ca. 1573-1636, in conjunction with the exhibition on view October 9, 2026 to January 9, 2027, at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
by the organizers: Paula Findlen, Brian Brege, and Giorgio Riello

MAP Forum talks are available exclusively online. To join, click the link in our bio or visit medici.org

Global Florence: The World of Francesco Carletti, c. 1573–1636 is an exhibition exploring the interconnected world of the early modern period through the travels and experiences of Florentine merchant Francesco Carletti, who was among the first Europeans to circumnavigate the globe around the turn of the seventeenth century. On view at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence from 9 October 2026 to 9 January 2027, the exhibition offers a new perspective on Florence’s connections with distant regions through travel, trade, diplomacy, and cultural exchange.

Bringing together 69 objects, including manuscripts, maps, navigational instruments, textiles, artworks, and rare books, the exhibition traces Carletti’s journeys across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, highlighting Florence’s role as a center of trade, diplomacy, and the exchange of knowledge. The exhibition also addresses the more troubling dimensions of early modern globalization, including Carletti’s participation in the slave trade and his own reflections on its moral implications.

This MAP Forum roundtable brings together the scientific organizers of the exhibition to discuss its themes, objects, and the process of bringing Carletti’s global world to life through this extraordinary collection of materials.

For more information on the exhibition, click the link in our bio.

#lecture #onlinelecture #lectureseries #academiclecture #academia #history #art #arthistory #renaissance #earlymodern #florence #firenze #italy #italia #globalflorence #laurenziana #bml #bibliotecamedicealaurenziana #exhibition #exhibit
We're excited to introduce the first of our 2026-2 We're excited to introduce the first of our 2026-27 fellows! Emily Addis is a PhD candidate in Musicology at the CUNY Graduate Center researching the presence of music in the lives of Medici women.

Stay tuned over the coming months to learn about our other fellows' research!

#fellowships #phd #phdcandidate #phdstudent #research #history #arthistory #renaissance #earlymodern #italy #italia #florence #firenze #archive #archivalresearch #juniorresearchfellowship #researchfellowship #music #musicology #musichistory #womenshistory #feministhistory #historyofmusic
MAP FORUM PRESENTS: Fertile Florence: Demography a MAP FORUM PRESENTS: Fertile Florence:
Demography and the Politics of Reproduction in Renaissance Visual Culture by Costanza Gilson Dopfel
Tuesday, 6 October 2026 at 4pm EST / 10pm CET

MAP Forum talks are available exclusively online. To join, click the link in our bio or visit medici.org

In her latest work, Dopfel argues that representations of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood responded to contemporary concerns about fertility, population decline, infant survival, and the continuation of families and lineages. Dopfel places these images within the broader politics of reproduction, showing how private concerns surrounding marriage, conception, birth, and maternal health intersected with civic and political anxieties about the demographic future of the city. Combining art history with demographic, social, medical, and reproductive history, the book considers a wide range of visual and material evidence, from images of the pregnant Virgin and the Nativity to objects associated with childbirth and the domestic sphere. In doing so, it argues that maternal imagery was not simply devotional or domestic, but formed part of a larger cultural response to the demographic pressures that shaped Renaissance Florence.

Costanza Gislon Dopfel is Professor of Art History at Saint Mary’s College of California. She received her doctorate in Italian Renaissance literature from Stanford University and has worked extensively on the history and iconography of childbirth in medieval and Renaissance Italy. Her publications include the co-edited volumes Nascere (Il Mulino, 2017) and Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World (Brepols, 2019), as well as the edited volume Maternal Materialities: Objects, Rituals and Material Evidence of Medieval and Early Modern Childbirth (Brepols, 2024).

#lecture #onlinelecture #lectureseries #academiclecture #academia #history #art #arthistory #renaissance #earlymodern #florence #firenze #italy #italia #mother #motherhood #historyofscience #painting #demography #demographics
A RUINED BOOK, AN EMPEROR LEFT WAITING 18 October A RUINED BOOK, AN EMPEROR LEFT WAITING

18 October 1549. Lorenzo Pagni writes from Florence: "His Imperial Majesty [Charles V Habsburg] could not enjoy the Domenichi's translation of Boethius' De Consolatione, because when Cencenino was bringing the book, he got it wet and brought it in poor condition. He therefore would like to have another manuscript copy written in a good hand, and in the Varchi's translation. His Excellency [...] commanded me to write you with the order to put your hand to copy both without interruption, and have it bound with a beautiful binding as is fitting for the greatness of His Majesty."

This small accident, recorded in a letter from Florence, offers a glimpse into the material and diplomatic life of books at the Medici court.

And what a contrast with this Florentine manuscript of the De consolatione philosophiae, produced around the middle of the fourteenth century: its illuminated initials are defined by geometric forms and foliate scrollwork, in deep reds and blues, bottle greens and dusty pinks.

Two books, two moments in the long history of Boethius's work — and a reminder that every manuscript has a story of its own.

The exhibition READING THE RENAISSANCE: WESTERN BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS FROM THE 10th to the 17th CENTURY formally opened at the Shanghai Library East, scheduled for public viewing from June 27 through October 11, 2026. This landmark exhibition represents a highly coordinated international collaboration. It is organized jointly by the Medici Center Shanghai (MeCS) and Yunmiao Culture, in institutional partnership with the Medici Archive Project (MAP) and Zaiyi. The initiative also operates under the institutional patronage of the Italian Cultural Institute in Shanghai.

#Boethius #MediciArchive #Florence #MedievalManuscripts #HistoryOfTheBook #Renaissance
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