Early Modern Florence Research Articles

Rethinking the life of court dwarfs in early modern Florence: the case of Pietro Barbino at the Medici court☆

AbstractCourt dwarfs were a feature of aristocratic entourages across Europe from the Medieval period until the eighteenth century and their presence is recorded in both contemporary artworks and written sources. Traditionally, it has been assumed that these courtly attendants functioned solely as jester‐buffoons who were exploited and humiliated by their patrons, but is this assumption accurate? By recovering the forgotten histories of this significant group of court staff, new perspectives emerge on the lives of court dwarfs and the various roles they undertook, beyond their conventional role as jesters. This article examines the case of Pietro Barbino, a dwarf attendant at the Medici court in sixteenth‐century Florence, who was the subject of a portrait by the court sculptor Valerio Cioli. Information from archival sources about Barbino's life, both inside and outside the court, corresponds with Giorgio Vasari's description of him as ‘a gifted dwarf, well‐lettered, a very gentle spirit and a favourite of our Duke’ (Lives of the Artists, 1568). Barbino's story suggests that, at least in some instances, dwarf attendants were involved with more erudite aspects of courtly entertainment and were able to achieve a measure of personal autonomy within the complex hierarchy of the court system.

Queer Sex and the Crisis of Capital

Queer Sex and the Crisis of Capital

Stepmothers and stepdaughters in early modern Florence

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between patrician stepmothers and stepdaughters in early modern Florence. With the high rate of remarriage, stepfamilies were not uncommon though the intimate workings of these complex family relationships are often difficult to reconstruct. The account book and correspondence of Maddalena Ricasoli reveal that enduring bonds between stepmothers and stepdaughters could develop and last beyond the death of the male figure who brought them together. Both Maddalena Ricasoli and her stepdaughter, Maria Arrigucci Carducci, worked together to divide family assets in the aftermath of Filippo Arrigucci’s death in the mid-sixteenth century. Maddalena’s niece, Cassandra Ricasoli, also strategically formed complicated female kinship ties to her own stepmother and half-siblings after her father’s remarriage as well as to her aunt Maddalena and Maddalena’s stepdaughter, Maria Carducci. These case studies suggest that women incorporated stepmothers and stepdaughters into their female networks and reveal a more inclusive conception of the early modern family that moved beyond the patriline.

Bride, Court Lady, Oriental Princess, Virgin Mary, Jewess: The Many Faces of Queen Esther in Early Modern Florence

Bride, Court Lady, Oriental Princess, Virgin Mary, Jewess: The Many Faces of Queen Esther in Early Modern Florence

Mapping the Transformation of Information into Knowledge in Early Modern Florence

The recent use of geographic information systems (GIS) to visualize large historical datasets are particularly useful to History instructors who seek real-world platforms that support an open-ended investigation of past societies. The University of Toronto’s DECIMA Project (Digitally Encoded Census and Information Mapping Archive) presents an open-access platform through which anyone can explore census material collected in early modern Florence. This article explores how senior undergraduate students used the DECIMA Project to construct research-based learning assignments that they developed independently. A rubric assessed the resulting student work in order to evaluate several cognitive abilities that students employed during their method design, data analysis, and the contextualization of conclusions. The assignment also drew on central History disciplinary concepts (articulating a question, constructing an argument, evaluating sources, and discerning challenges to the narrative), while introducing students to 'real Florentines.'

Noisy Soundscapes and Women’s Institutions in Early Modern Florence

Noisy Soundscapes and Women’s Institutions in Early Modern Florence

La botanique dans un contexte local: les jardins de Florence à l’époque des grands-ducs (1569–1859)

This article describes the social and institutional conditions of the practice of botany in early modern Florence. This practice started with the study of medical plants in hospital and university contexts, with the passion of the Medicis for gardens, and the interest of the Vallombrosian monks for cryptogams. During the XVIIIth century, science of plants focused on classification (morphology), pharmacology (materia medica) and vegetable physiology, but included also the inventory of Tuscan flora and agronomy. These diverging aims created tensions within the nascent community of botanists, crystallizing around the management of gardens and the choice of classification systems. After 1770, a more scientific approach of botany was made possible by the rise of experimental practices and the development of chemistry. Yet, a true professionalization of research did not occur before the political unification of Italy, when the management of institutions and the recruitment of botanists were assumed by a central Ministry of education, instead of being dependent on princely favors and patrician connections.

Review of Kelley Harness. 2006. Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence . Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press

In Stephen Frears's recent film The Queen (2006), Elizabeth II, played by Helen Mirren, is deeply concerned about the boundary between private family life and public persona in the period immediately following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. In seeking to protect the privacy of her family and especially that of her grandsons, to allow them to grieve in private, she inadvertently projects an uncaring public persona. It falls to the newly elected prime minister, Tony Blair, in collaboration with the Queen's long-suffering secretary, to persuade Her Majesty to pursue a different course of action and thus placate the mass public. Whatever the fairness of this representation, the Queen, while clearly in command of her role as head of state, is portrayed as a leader no longer in command of her public image and even unable to comprehend its importance. I'm tempted to recommend that Frears's Queen acquaint herself with the sophisticated communication tactics of other female rulers by reading Kelley Harness's Echoes of Women's Voices. Whether wives, widows, or nuns, early modern Italian noblewomen were adept at using patronage to shape their public image. Of course, sometimes they too had to practice damage control-a topic to which I shall return. Echoes of Women's Voices is an absorbing study of female self- fashioning in early modern Florence that documents successes and mishaps in the pa­ tronage strategies of women regents and women religious. The main focus is on Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, widow of Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, during her joint regency of Florence (1621-30) with Christine of Lorraine, but there are also two chapters on the institutional patronage of the convent of Santa Croce (known as La Crocetta), home to Princess Maria Maddalena, Christine of Lorraine's daughter and therefore Archduchess Maria Magdalena's sister-in-law. The concept of patronage as a means of fashioning a public identity is familiar, but aside from William Prizer's articles on Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia (e.g., 1982; 1985; 1999), and studies of convents by Robert Kendrick (1996), Craig Monson (1995), and Colleen Reardon (1996; 2002), there is little substantial work on women's musical patronage in Italy. Harness draws upon research into early modern women's patronage of the visual arts, particularly highlighting the idea from Roger Crum (2001) that, regardless of who commissioned a work,

Galenic Medicine and Social Stability in Early Modern Florence and the Islamic Empires

Abstract Modern perceptions of cross-cultural encounters between Europe and the Islamic empires have centered around the differences between the European and Islamic systems of political organization in an effort to valorize Western political values and styles of rulership. The present article challenges some of the assumptions that inform scholarship on contacts between Europe and the Islamic world in the early modern period by pointing to hitherto unexplored affinities between the Florentine and Islamic traditions of political thought. In particular, it investigates the use of ancient Greek theories of the four humors/elements of the human body in an extensive corpus of writings produced by seminal political theorists, historians, and figures of intellectual and political life in early modern Florentine (Niccolò Machiavelli, Francesco Guicciardini, Donato Giannotti), Persian (Ṭūsī, Dawwānī, Kāshifī), Mughal (Khwāndamīr, Abūʾl-Fazl), and Ottoman (Kınalızâde, Kâtib Çelebi) traditions from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. My analysis demonstrates that Galen’s humoral theory served the aforementioned writers as a conceptual tool for identifying the mutual dependency of the component parts of the body politic as one of the key determinants of domestic balance and harmony and for theorizing remedies against strife and friction.

‘Every sort of manual type, and mostly foreigners’: migrants, brothers and festive kings in early modern Florence

ABSTRACT:In 1522, the artisan festive ‘kingdom’ of the Biliemme put up the biggest street tabernacle in Florence. German textile workers were behind the tabernacle and this article argues that, at a time of crisis for German workers, these men looked to reassert their place in Florence through their participation in a citywide artisan festive subculture. Forty years later, Germans in the Biliemme district had largely been replaced by textile migrants from other parts of Italy. Nonetheless the kingdom remained a important vehicle for creating neighbourhood solidarities and for incorporating these new migrants into the artisan and civic world.

Fashion Networks: Consumer Demand and the Clothing Trade in Florence from the Mid-Sixteenth to Early Seventeenth Centuries

This essay explores the practicalities of making and buying clothing in early modern Florence. Drawing on the household accounts of families associated with the Medici court, together with a range of other archival sources, the essay uncovers complex patterns of interaction between consumers, artisans, and retailers. Such networks were fundamental to the way dress fashions developed and achieved wider diffusion during this period. Wealthy Florentines closely supervised the many different stages involved in the acquisition of clothing, often drawing on expertise they had accumulated as silk merchants and as agents purchasing goods on behalf of others. Buying clothing was also a strongly gendered pursuit, shaped by contemporary views of women's domestic roles. Despite the influence exercised by consumers, members of the clothing trade played a significant part in promoting change in fashions. In particular, tailors and mercers became known for their ability to create new designs and offer novel products.

Musical Voices of Early Modern Women: Many-Headed Melodies. Thomasin LaMay, ed. Echoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence. Kelley A. Harness.

<i>Musical Voices of Early Modern Women: Many-Headed Melodies</i>. Thomasin LaMay, ed. <i>Echoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence</i>. Kelley A. Harness.

Allison Levy. Re-Membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture. (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World.) Ashgate, 2006.

Allison Levy. Re-Membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture. (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World.) Ashgate, 2006.

:Re-Membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture

:<i>Re-Membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture</i>

Review: Allison Levy, Re-membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning, and Portraiture, Ashgate: Aldershot, 2006; xx + 194 pp., 132 illus.; 9780754654049, £60.00 (hbk)

Review: Allison Levy, Re-membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning, and Portraiture, Ashgate: Aldershot, 2006; xx + 194 pp., 132 illus.; 9780754654049, £60.00 (hbk)

Thinking with Saints: Sanctity and Society in the Early Modern World

Previous articleNext article No AccessSaintly Self-FashioningThinking with Saints: Sanctity and Society in the Early Modern WorldSimon DitchfieldSimon Ditchfield Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Inquiry Volume 35, Number 3Spring 2009 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/598809 Views: 769Total views on this site Citations: 14Citations are reported from Crossref © 2009 by The University of Chicago. 0093‐1896/09/3503‐0006$10.00. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Rachel M. McCleary, Robert J. Barro Mártires de Latinoamérica, 1854-2022, Revista Fe y Libertad 5, no.11 (Jul 2022): 61–94.https://doi.org/10.55614/27093824.v5i1.127Viktoria von Hoffmann Epistemologies of Touch in Early Modern Holy Autopsies, Renaissance Quarterly 75, no.22 (Jun 2022): 542–582.https://doi.org/10.1017/rqx.2022.107Ruth Sargent Noyes ‘Purest Bones, Sweet Remains, and Most Sacred Relics.’ Re-Fashioning St. Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1458–84) as a Medieval Saint between Counter-Reformation Italy and Poland-Lithuania, Religions 12, no.1111 (Nov 2021): 1011.https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12111011Joseba Louzao Villar Spanish holiness: sainthood and Catholic nation between Pius IX and Leo XIII, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 27, no.33 (Nov 2021): 277–292.https://doi.org/10.1080/14701847.2021.1998983Noria Litaker Lost in Translation? Constructing Ancient Roman Martyrs in Baroque Bavaria, Church History 89, no.44 (Mar 2021): 801–828.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640721000020Nicola Denzey Lewis The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome, 15 (Aug 2020).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108646826Robert John Clines A Jewish Jesuit in the Eastern Mediterranean, IV (Sep 2019).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108756419Celeste McNamara Molding the Model Bishop from Trent to Vatican II, Church History 88, no.11 (May 2019): 58–86.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640719000520Jenni Kuuliala, Rose-Marie Peake, Päivi Räisänen-Schröder Introduction: Hagiography and Lived Religion, (Oct 2019): 1–25.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15553-7_1Jenni Kuuliala Cure, Community, and the Miraculous in Early Modern Florence, (Oct 2019): 265–292.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15553-7_11Jennifer Hillman St Pientia and the Château de la Roche-Guyon: Relic Translations and Sacred History in Seventeenth-Century France, Studies in Church History 53 (May 2017): 257–271.https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2016.16A. Katie Harris “An Immense Structure of Errors”: Dionisio Bonfant, Lucas Holstenius, and the Writing of Sacred History in Seventeenth-Century Sardinia*, (Jan 2017): 243–267.https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316271513.013 Hansoon Lee A study on two paintings by Caravaggio in Cerasi Chapel in the context of religious liturgy, The Misulsahakbo(Reviews on the Art History) null, no.3939 (Dec 2012): 261–293.https://doi.org/10.15819/rah.2012..39.261Clare Copeland Saints, Devotions and Canonisation in Early Modern Italy, History Compass 10, no.33 (Mar 2012): 260–269.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2012.00834.x

Re-membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture by Allison Levy

Re-membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture by Allison Levy

Women, Objects, and Exchange in Early Modern Florence

Previous articleNext article No AccessForum: The Rise of the Mercantile Economy and Early Modern WomenWomen, Objects, and Exchange in Early Modern FlorenceAnn MatchetteAnn Matchette Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal Volume 3Fall 2008 Published for the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/EMW23541538 Views: 26Total views on this site © 2008 Center for Renaissance & Baroque StudiesPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Echoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence. By Kelley Harness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp. xvi+378. $45.00.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsEchoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence. By Kelley Harness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp. xvi+378. $45.00.Thomasin LaMayThomasin LaMayGoucher College Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 80, Number 2June 2008 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/591583 Views: 24Total views on this site © 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Echoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence ‐ by Kelley Harness

<i>Echoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence</i> ‐ by Kelley Harness