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Home » @theMediciArchiveProject

@theMediciArchiveProject

📣 Announcing the final program for the workshop 📣 Announcing the final program for the workshop EARLY MODERN MANSPLAINING: MALE-AUTHORED HISTORIES OF WOMEN
🗓 25-26 September 2025, starting at 9:00 both days
📍 Palazzo Alberti, Via de’ Benci 10, Florence
‼️ Space is limited! Email education@medici.org to reserve a seat.

The early modern understanding of women’s historical achievements was shaped in large part by male authors. Their historiographic constructions can be found in a wide range of writings, from pro-woman treatises to hagiographies of female saints, historiographic accounts of women worthies, sermons, behavioral treatises, and even medical studies of female physiology. Some of these male authors were writing at the behest of women patrons, and in many cases it appears that their texts were intended primarily for a female readership.

One of the earliest works of European historiography to focus on women was Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris. Completed in 1374 and containing biographies of 106 women worthies, this landmark text was not entirely celebratory, particularly in cases where women had achieved renown in realms that Boccaccio considered to be the preserve of men. By contrast, the largest treatise to have ever been written on women’s history –comprising some 13,000 pages and compiled by Cristofano Bronzini in the early seventeenth century – was deemed excessively celebratory by the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books. This was Bronzini’s magnum opus and his dying wish was that it would one day be published, lifting his own name to prominence.

By taking a larger view of the phenomenon, we hope to learn more about the conditions under which the earliest histories of women were created and consumed.

#mansplaining #conference #workshop #academia #scholar #scholarship #womenshistory #feminism #historyofwomen #earlymodern #italy #italia #historyofmedicine #art #arthistory #history #literature #humanism #eventsinflorence #venice #europe #europeanhistory #siena #sculpture #biography
We're excited to introduce the second of our Fall We're excited to introduce the second of our Fall 2025 fellows: Giulia Lovison, who recently received her PhD from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. At MAP, her research will focus on the operations of the Inquisition during the Medicean period.

Stay tuned to meet more of our fellows and hear about their work over the coming months!

#fellow #academicfellow #fellowship #phd #phdlife #scholar #scholarship #research #renaissance #earlymodern #italy #italia #inquisition #inquisizione #religion #historyofreligion #scuolanormalesuperiore #universitadifirenze #unifi #archive #archivalresearch #research
(2/4) Despite his Italian origins and his initial (2/4) Despite his Italian origins and his initial resistance to Ottoman attempts to convert him, Scipione Cicala (whom we met in the previous post) was eventually swayed. Whereas his father, Vincenzo, was eventually released and returned to Sicily, Scipione stayed in Constantinople, where he became a significant figure under Sultan Mehmed III.

While his earlier career is not referenced in the information that reached Florence, two avvisi (newsletters) from early July 1575 report that "Cicala's son" (who remains unnamed) replaced "the head of the Janissaries," the Sultan's elite household troops. Indeed, "Cicala, the Lord [Mehmed III]'s most favourite, was made Agha of the Janissaries." In his post, "he made great efforts to observe the laws, including stopping consumption of wine" (as drinking alcohol is prohibited in Islam) "and especially among the Janissaries." This must have come to a shock to Italian readers, whose love of wine has remained consistent from ancient Rome to the modern day. Could it be possible that the Italian Scipione Cicala was no more, and had been entirely Ottomanified? Eschewing wine and now holding one of the most important positions in the empire, there could be no doubt about it.

ASF, Mediceo del Principato 4026, f. 440r-v; 3082, f. 287v
MAP DocID: 26268, 27214
Transcribed by Julia Vicioso and Maurizio Arfaioli
Portrait of Scipione Cicala as "Zigala Bassa, Captain of the Sea," published by Dominicus Custos after a drawing by Georgius Wickgram, 1601-1604

#history #ottomans #ottoman #ottomanempire #constantinople #istanbul #corsair #pirate #privateer #ottomanfashion #news #historyofnews #aga #agha #janissaries #military #militaryhistory #janissary #ottomanhistory #wine #globalrenaissance
(1/4) An avviso (newsletter) sent from Constantino (1/4) An avviso (newsletter) sent from Constantinople brought dramatic news to Florence in September 1561. Several months before, Vincenzo Cicala, a corsair of noble Genoese origins, had been captured by the Turks, as reported elsewhere (DocIDs: 11332, 58033). Although not languishing, the captain was greatly distressed when "His son was taken from him" and kept in the company of the Ottoman privateer Dragut, who "kept him in his company dressed as a Turk" even though "this was not Dragut's promise."

Cicala's son, Scipione (born in 1545), resisted Ottoman attempts to make him adopt their customs. Kept under the watchful eyes of Dragut's men, at one point he was almost forced to have his hair cut "in order to make him Turkish." Scipione, however, refused: "he requested to speak to the Lord [Dragut] ... and insisted that he would rather they cut off his head altogether and release him from his misery."

"Moved by compassion, [Dragut] ordered that they let him be as he was, not wanting to force [Scipione] to do anything." However, as time went on, the boy began to take on Ottoman customs: they dressed him "in brocade vestments," no doubt fine local fabrics, and he was allowed to see his mother, an Ottoman slave herself, who "had long been in the Lord's serraglio."

In the end, Dragut got what he wanted: Scipione converted to Islam and took the name Yusuf Sinan (though often referred to as Cığalazade, an adaptation of his Italian name), and eventually became an important figure under Sultan Mehmed III, as we will see in coming posts!

ASF, Mediceo del Principato 4148, f. 163r; 4277, f. 105r
DocIDs: 24394, 57235
Transcribed by Maurizio Arfaioli and Clement Godbarge
Paolo Veronese, Portrait of the fourteenth-century Sultan Bajezid I depicting sixteenth-century Italian conceptions of Turkish fashions in dress and facial hair

#history #arthistory #ottomans #ottoman #constantinople #istanbul #dragut #corsair #pirate #privateer #haircut #hairstyle #hair #fashion #historyoffashion #fashionhistory #ottomanfashion #genoa #genova #news #historyofnews
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