Against the Medici: Art and Dissent in Renaissance Italy (Contro i Medici: arte e dissenso nell’Italia del Rinascimento)
Archivio di Stato – Florence
26-27 May, 2016
As patrons of art, the Medici left a legacy that is unrivalled. Their well-known narrative lies at the center of Renaissance scholarship. The Medici patronized painters and sculptors, founded academies, preserved and curated their collections, and used both artists and artworks as political tools to convey their agendas and augment their prestige amongst the courts of Italy and Europe. Yet, just as Medici identity was expressed in terms of this cultural patrimony, so too were the attacks of their enemies. A rich corpus of anti-Medicean works of art remains underappreciated and understudied: works of art that communicated messages of opposition, hostility and even hate that struck at the very heart of the political identity of the Medici dynasty. Recognizing the role that art, artists, and artistic patronage played in opposing the Medici (roughly from Cosimo the Elder to the end of the sixteenth century), this two-day event, sponsored by the Medici Archive Project and the Archivio di Stato in Florence, will address this lacuna.
The organizers of the conference, Alessio Assonitis and Stefano Dall’Aglio, invite proposals for 25-minute papers that pertain to subjects including, but not limited to:
- Anti-Medici Patronage in the Quattrocento
- Savonarola and the Piagnoni: aesthetics, patronage and artistic production
- Michelangelo: between pro-Medici and anti-Medici
- Anti-Medici art and patronage in Rome · Art and architecture in the time of the Republic(s)
- Dissent and absolutism under the Medici Dukes
- Anti-Medicean sentiment in academies, workshops, and confraternities
- Graffiti and vandalism
- Florentine patronage in exile
- Duplicity and dissimulation
- Censorship and Damnatio Memoriae
The keynote speaker will be Paolo Simoncelli (Sapienza – Università di Roma).
Scholars interested in participating should send an abstract in English or Italian (no more than 200 words) and a one page C.V. to conference@medici.org by 1 January, 2016. The papers can be presented in English or Italian.
Selected participants will receive partial funding for travel and accommodation.
