Villa I Tatti - The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies welcomes participants in our Summer Seminar in Florence (28 June to 19 July 2014) on “Understanding Space in Renaissance Italy.” The seminar focuses on the meaning and function of space in art, architecture, and urban infrastructures in Renaissance Italy, and especially in Florence (c. 1300-1600). Space has emerged in recent scholarship on the arts in the Early Modern period as crucial for understanding the relationship between objects and their contemporary viewers. Florence is ideal for such a seminar, for both its remarkable surviving fabric and the rich body of related scholarship. Site visits are selected and arranged as “walks” so as to allow themes to emerge from the experience of moving from one place to another. The format also provides opportunities for detailed examination of a small number of specific architectural monuments, as well as the works of art within each monument.
Each week, the participants will meet in Florence for three days to study in museums, churches, piazzas, and monuments, and at I Tatti for two days to attend lectures, participate in discussions, and carry out individual research in the Berenson Library. On 15 October 2014, scholars will meet at the Harvard Center Shanghai to give presentations related to their work and experience in Florence. They will also have the opportunity to attend a conference, to be held at the Harvard Center Shanghai on 16-17 October, dedicated to "Space in Renaissance Italy;" this is organized by I Tatti and sponsored by the Harvard University China Fund. The seminar aims to facilitate dialogue between participants, lecturers, and I Tatti appointees, and to enrich and strengthen the study of the Italian Renaissance in China.
The seminar is organized and staffed by scholars associated with I Tatti and Harvard University; most were trained in Europe and/or the US. The co-directors are Jonathan Nelson (Assistant Director for Academic Programs, Villa I Tatti) and Fabrizio Nevola (Chair of Art History, University of Exeter, UK). Lectures will be given by Lino Pertile (Director, Villa I Tatti), Eugene Wang (Professor of Asian Art, Harvard University) and others.
The seminar aims to facilitate dialogue between participants, lecturers, and I Tatti appointees, and to enrich and strengthen the study of the Italian Renaissance in China.
Candidates are required to:
1. Live and work in Greater China (Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau), and have a passport from one of these areas.
2. Teach or study the Italian Renaissance; this could be part of a course or research on Western culture, art or architecture.
3. Be able to follow a lecture and participate in class discussions in English, the language used in all lectures and discussions.
4. Be enrolled in a PhD program, or have completed a PhD over the last five years.
-Students must have already completed their Master's degree, and have an approved PhD dissertation topic.
-Recent graduates must have a PhD certificate that bears a date between 1 January 2009 and 7 March 2014.
To apply please click here. Deadline: 7 March 2014
NOTE: DEADLINE HAS PASSED
- Preference will be given to scholars who have not studied for an extended period in the West.
- Preference will be given to art historians and architectural historians.
- I Tatti actively seeks participants from many different parts of Greater China
- For information about the 2013 seminar, click here; for an article about it in the Getty online journal, click here.
- For a letter about I Tatti and China by Lino Pertile, on the first page of the 2012 newsletter, click here.
Support for the seminar is provided through a grant from the Getty Foundation as part of its Connecting Art Histories initiative.
