Biography

While serving as the director of the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence from 2015 to 2024, Cecilie Hollberg renewed the museum through her historical expertise. She has numerous scholarly publications and was curator of major exhibitions such as the Textile and Wealth in Fourteenth-century Florence. Wool, Silk, Painting (2017) or Michelangelo: L’effigie in bronzo di Daniele da Volterra (2022). Hollberg holds a PhD in Medieval History from the University of Göttingen, Germany and started her museum career at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in 2002. She teaches Curatorial Studies and Museology in a variety of universities. Her legal victory to protect the image of Michelangelo's David was a monumental victory for cultural heritage. For her efforts in protecting and promoting artistic heritage, she was named an Honorary Academician of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

Project Summary

The fourteenth century in Florence was the beginning of many important developments and considerations regarding markets, money, the production of artworks and textiles. An open-minded Florentine city government made innovation and progress possible and enabled Florence to gain enormous sums of revenue by means of the trade in textiles: starting with wool and adding silk by the end of the fourteenth century. Florence became one of the most famous and rich Renaissance cities thanks to the local trading families and bank owners. Buildings and churches commissioned by these families bear witness to this today. The resulting prosperity attracted merchants, craftsmen and artists from elsewhere. High quality and valuable products were requested by the churches or wealthy families. The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze has a large number of ecclesiastical paintings of that period depicting rich textiles often enhanced with ornaments; these altar pieces form the corpus for the upcoming study. This research will enable a further understanding of the different types of materials and patterns in these textiles and help identify the individuals depicted wearing them.