I Tatti has been closely monitoring the impact of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) since the beginning of the year. In accordance with the Italian Government’s instructions on the nationwide lockdown, the center is currently closed until further notice. All appointees and staff are required to stay away from the campus during the closure, with the exception of a small number of authorised maintenance staff. Public events and tours of the villa have been cancelled for the forseeable future, although any changes to these circumstances will be announced on our website.
Our current appointees have managed to achieve a great deal this year even under these very challenging circumstances and we are enormously proud of them and their work. Since December, our community has enjoyed presentations of our new Fellows' projects; a full series of Thursday Seminars; and an international conference on Common Children and the Common Good: Locating Foundlings in the Early Modern World. The 2019 / 20 appointees have visited Mantua to see the Giulio Romano exhibitions at Palazzo Te and Palazzo Ducale; visited the exhibition celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Cosimo I de' Medici at Palazzo Pitti; and toured the Florence synagogue with Visiting Professor Reuven Amitai. Now that we are closed, our Fellows are still able to enjoy off-site access to all our and Harvard’s e-resources so that they are not cut off from their work.
At this difficult time, the safety of our community is our top priority. We continue to monitor the situation closely and take all necessary precautionary steps, and we remain cautiously optimistic that we will be able to reopen the doors of our center to our appointees and visiting scholars in the not too distant future.