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Home » @theMediciArchiveProject

@theMediciArchiveProject

Buon Ferragosto and happy summer holidays from MAP Buon Ferragosto and happy summer holidays from MAP!
Instead of our traditional summer vacation photos, this year we’ve asked our staff and fellows to share a picture of their home library—the collection of books they keep have at hand at any time, such as when passing the hottest days of August away from the office. Do you recognise any titles you have yourself?

We wish you all a restful August and look forward to more archival adventures in the autumn!

#summer #summervacation #vacation #ferragosto #library
CALL FOR PAPERS: Architecture and Mobility in Earl CALL FOR PAPERS: Architecture and Mobility in Early Modern Tuscany
International Workshop - Friday, 5 February 2027 - The Medici Archive Project, Palazzo Alberti, Florence

Fifty years after the publication of Giorgio Spini’s seminal Architettura e politica da Cosimo I a Ferdinando I, the Medici Archive Project is organizing a workshop addressing the interpenetration between building practices and state-building during the Medici grand duchy, with a specific emphasis on how investments in infrastructure facilitated and/or regulated the mobility of people, commodities, material culture, and intelligence in the stato vecchio and the stato nuovo. Especially welcome are papers that shed light on how civil engineering works—such as roads, canals, ports, river harbors, bridges, fortifications, dams, gates, post houses, staging inns, aqueducts, and custom houses—served as vehicles of communication, and how these networks fundamentally shaped the political success and economic progress of Medici Tuscany. Also relevant will be contributions reflecting on the creation of urban spaces specifically designated for the reception of mobility, including squares, markets, gardens, pharmacies, libraries, and neighborhoods (such as the Jewish Ghetto and the German quarter in Florence and the “foreign” settlements in Livorno and Pisa). Ideally, this workshop will begin to chart the critical topographies and infrastructure that defined the history of circulation throughout the Tuscan territory.

This initiative marks the first of four academic events dedicated to Medici architecture and urban planning. Concurrently, it feeds into a long-term research project that will culminate in an exhibition on the Medici and global news networks, tentatively entitled “How the Medici Came to Know about the World” (October 12, 2028 — January 12, 2029).

The organizers invite proposals for 20-minute unpublished papers in English or Italian, and especially those that take interdisciplinary approaches engaging architectural history, art history, archaeology, history, urban studies, landscape studies, and material culture.

Submissions are due 1 October 2026.
Click the link in our bio for more info.
Cristofano Bronzini collectively wrote about the w Cristofano Bronzini collectively wrote about the women artists of Ming China in ON THE DIGNITY AND NOBILITY OF WOMEN. His willingness to discuss women in China, alongside women from other continents outside of Europe (which will also be covered here soon!), demonstrates the global scope of his work. Of these women, he recorded that they excelled “both in drawing and in painting; in relief work and carving, and especially in painting foliage, birds, and all manner of wild animals, as can be clearly seen from the prints that come from there to our lands…” An image here, attributed to Ma Shouzhen, best exemplifies the Chinese art that Bronzini described. Bronzini’s praise of women artists working across a variety of media and from diverse regions further underscores the incredible range of this manuscript.

#history #arthistory #italy #italia #women #womenartists #womenshistory #renaissance #earlymodern #bronzini #cristofanobronzini #digitization #digitalhumanities #humanities #painting #globalrenaissance #ming #chinesehistory #mingdynasy #mashouzhen
While most of the women artists that Cristofano Br While most of the women artists that Cristofano Bronzini wrote about in ON THE DIGNITY AND NOBILITY OF WOMEN were Italian, he also included profiles for three Spanish (María de Jesús Torres, Isabella Sánchez Coello, and Francisca de Jesús) and one French artist (Margeurite Bahuche).

Regarding Francisca de Jesùs, Bronzini wrote that “...her art of weaving damasks and brocades, her marvelous works, as she accomplished on her looms what any skilled painter could scarcely depict with pen or brush on canvas,” directly comparing weaving to painting. In making this comparison, Bronzini challenged the conventional hierarchy that privileged painting over the so-called "decorative" arts, presenting textile production as an aristic practice equal in creativity and technical mastery. An image here of a Spanish chasuble with orphrey bands is an example of the remarkable intricacy of damask weaving and embroidery produced by some of these artists.

#history #arthistory #italy #italia #women #womenartists #womenshistory #renaissance #earlymodern #bronzini #cristofanobronzini #digitization #digitalhumanities #humanities #painting #damask #fabric #textile #fashionhistory #vestment #franciscadejesus
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