The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Villa I Tatti Via di Vincigliata 26, 50135 Florence, Italy Volume 21 —,m— E-mail: [email protected] 2001 Telephone: +39-055-603-251 / Fax: +39-055-603-383 his year’s “Letter from Florence” tural plans for this have long since been Tcomes, in fact, not from Florence Letter From Florence drawn, and a considerable part of the at all. Unexpectedly, I am writing it P money has been raised, yet until yester- from Manhattan, on a steamy August day we have been stymied by the morning in a room high over refractory Fiesolan bureau- the East River. As I look in cracy. It has been ten years the direction of Montauk, Italy now since we first applied for is an indiscernible speck on an permits to replace the indeterminable horizon, hid- unsightly row of shabby den by the curvature of the garages at the back of the earth. Yet uncannily, I Tatti parking lot with a handsome itself is very much present in new building, essentially the this room. I’ve been spending same size and in the same every morning in e-mail com- footprint, which will provide munication with members of an office for each Fellow and a the staff, working on acade- room for small lectures or mic, budgetary, and other seminars. What should have matters, and I’ve been confer- been a simple matter was ring regularly with Charles transformed into a Kafkaesque Brickbauer, our devoted archi- labyrinth by interminable tect, about current and future Walter Kaiser and Allen Grieco delays, tergiversations, equivo- building renovations. Former cations, and nit-picking, as if Fellows have written, phoned, the welfare of the denizens of or come by, and tomorrow I am to missed the annual June-time return of their community (to the economy of have lunch with one and dinner with former Fellows, our convegno on which I Tatti contributes millions of another, after having spent the morning Ariosto, Tasso, and Guarini (about dollars each year) were of little concern with I Tatti’s next Director. The fol- which many have written me with to the city fathers. However, I have just lowing day, I go off to spend the week- enthusiasm), and the summer supper all learned that we appear to have cleared end with Debby Brice, who heads the the members of the I Tatti staff and the final hurdle. At last! Given our past I Tatti Council; and next week Nelda their spouses have each year, which we experience, I’m chary about indulging and Sandro Ferace will be visiting me call la festa per noialtri. But I shall be back in unqualified optimism and, if only out here in New York. So I Tatti remains at the beginning of September, in time of deference to scaramanzia, I’m not pretty vividly present, even though I’m for the new Fellows and the vendemmia, inclined to say much more about any an ocean away; but of course, in our although I dare say it will all feel unusu- of this yet. Nevertheless, I’ll risk the electronic age communication, and ally autumnal, if not downright crepus- opinion that it does seem as though we even certain forms of closeness, are no cular, since the coming year is to be my may finally be able to begin this longer dependent on location. last at I Tatti. Labuntur anni! Any valetu- long-deferred project. I suspect it will Even so, I have been homesick for dinarian thoughts I possess I shall save take at least a year before the detailed the fields beside the Mensola and filled for next year’s letter, but there are sev- architectural drawings are approved and with those longings for the red roofs eral matters of more immediate impor- the necessary bureaucratic rituals per- and the olive trees that my old friend tance I’d like to tell you about. formed, but I hope that, with luck, Archie MacLeish once evoked in a First of all, there is the vexed subject we may be breaking ground for this of our projected loggiato. The architec- memorable poem. To my regret, I Continued on page 3 Cambridge Office: Villa I Tatti, Harvard University, 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-5762 Telephone: 617 495-8042 / Fax: 617 495-8041 Web:http://www.vit.firenze.it I Tatti Community 2000-2001 Fellows JAN STEJSKAL, (2nd sem), Andrew W. Mellon EVE BORSOOK, Villa I Tatti, Art History. Research Fellow, University of Palacky, History. AUVIN . AILEY, Hannah Kiel Fellow, “Medieval Mosaic Technology” and “Letters of G A B “Czech Exile Activities in Italy during the Filippo Strozzi the Elder.” Clark University, Art History. “Early Jesuit Hussite Reformation (c. 1400-1450).” Painting in Rome and Florence, 1540-1600: The SALVATORE I. CAMPOREALE, The Johns Art of Catholic Reform.” ANNE STONE, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Queens College, CUNY, Musicology. “The Hopkins University, History. “Uno studio sul STEFANO U. BALDASSARRI, Francesco De Poetics of Musical Time in Early Fifteenth- Dei libero arbitro di Lorenzo Valla.” Dombrowski Fellow, Georgetown University, Century Italy.” Florence, Literature. “Retorica e politica in GINO CORTI (Emeritus), Villa I Tatti, Giannozzo Manetti.” MALGORZATA SZAFRANSKA, (1st sem), Paleography and History. “Lorenzo de’ Medici, Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellow, Royal Castle in JILL BURKE, Francesco De Dombrowski Fellow, Warsaw, Art History. “Renaissance Gardens in collezionista di antichità.” Courtauld Institute, Art History. “The Politics of Italy and their Intellectual and Social LAURA CORTI, Istituto Universitario di Imagery in Florence, 1512-1530.” Significance.” Architettura, Venezia, Art History. “Le genealo- FRANCESCO FACCHIN, Jean-François Malle SERGIO TOGNETTI, Ahmanson Fellow, gie degli scalpellini fiesolani.” f2 Fellow, Conservatorio Statale di Musica “Cesare Università di Perugia, History. “Drappi contro Pollini,” Musicology. “Iconografia musicale nei seta: Rapporti commerciali tra Firenze e il ALLEN GRIECO, Villa I Tatti, History. “A libri liturgici fiorentini: Rilievi per un catologo Mediterraneo occidentale nel primo Social and Cultural History of Alimentary Habits della miniatura con soggetto musicale.” Rinascimento.” in Renaissance Italy.” MARGARET A. GALLUCCI, Ahmanson Fellow, NATASCIA TONELLI, Jean-François Malle MARGARET HAINES, Opera di Santa Maria Italian Academy at Columbia University, Literature. Fellow, Warburg Institute, Literature. “Le origini del Fiore, Art History. “Edition and Database of quattrocentesche del romanzo epistolare.” “The Poetics of Trials and the Construction of the Documentation of the Florentine Opera del Subjectivity in Early Modern Italy.” RONI WEINSTEIN, Melville J. Kahn Fellow, Duomo during the Cupola Period.” JULIA L. HAIRSTON, Francesco De Dombrowski Hebrew University, Jerusalem, History. “Sexuality Fellow, University of Rome “La Sapienza,” and Body Comportment in Jewish-Italian JULIAN KLIEMANN, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Literature. “Tullia d’Aragona, Woman of Communities during Early Modern Time.” Art History. “Temi imperiali nell’iconografia papale del Cinquecentro.” Letters.” Visiting Professors PETER F. HOWARD, Andrew W. Mellon ARNALDO MORELLI, Conservatorio Statale JAYNIE ANDERSON (2nd sem), University of Fellow, Monash University, History. “Preaching di Musica ‘Ottorino Respighi,’ Latina, and and the Renaissance City.” Melbourne, Art History. “A book on Giovanni Bellini and an exhibition (curated jointly with Università della Calabria, Arcavacata, Cosenza, MARCIN KALECINZKI (2nd sem), Andrew W. Francesco Valcanover) on late Titian, from 1550- Musicology. “L’organo in Italia nel Mellon Research Fellow , Gdansk University, Art 1578, and his Venetian contemporaries.” Rinascimento: funzione, prassi, repertorio.” History. “Corpus of 15th and 16th Century ARGARET ENT (1st sem), Robert Lehman Italian Painting in Church Collections in M B MICHAEL ROCKE, Villa I Tatti, History. Visiting Professor, All Souls College, Musicology. Poland.” “Edition and Translation of Italian Texts Related “15th Century Music and Early Veneto ROBERT MANIURA, Deborah Loeb Brice Humanists.” to Homoeroticism (14th-17th centuries).” Fellow, Courtauld Institute, Art History. “The KATHARINE PARK (2nd sem), Robert Lehman MASSIMILIANO ROSSI, Università di Lecce, Miraculous Marian Wall Paintings of Visiting Professor, Harvard University, History. Art History. “Le genealogie ‘fantastiche’ dei Renaissance Tuscany.” “The Early History of Human Dissection in Medici: politica letteraria e figurativa granducale BRANKO MITROVIC, CRIA Fellow, Italy, 1280-1550.” tra Cinque e Seicento.” UNITEC Institute of Technology, Aukland, Art NICHOLAS ROUTLEY (1st sem), University ILVANA EIDEL- ENCHI, Università di History. “Problems in Form in Renaissance of Sydney, Musicology. “The Complete Secular S S M Architectural History.” Vocal Music of Josquin des Prez.” Trento, History. “Storia interna della GIUSEPPE PALMERO, Francesco De Congregazione dell’Indice “ e “I processi matri- Research Associates Dombrowski Fellow, Université de Nice - Sophia moniali degli archivi ecclesiastici italiani.” Antipolis, History. “Oralità, scrittura e circo- FABIO BISOGNI, Università di Siena, Art MARCO SPALLANZANI, Università di lazione dei saperi nel Rinascimento.” History. “Rifacimento della sezione iconografica Firenze, History. “Hispano-Moresque Pottery in della Biblioteca Sanctorum.” MONIKA A. SCHMITTER, Rush H. Kress Renaissance Florence.” Fellow, University of Massachusetts, Art History. LINA BOLZONI, Scuola Normale Superiore, “Marcantonio Michiel’s Notizia: Collecting Art Pisa, Literature. “Prediche in volgare e uso delle and History in Renaissance Venice.” immagini dalle origini al Savonarola.” Former Fellows Update LAWRIN ARMSTRONG (VIT’00) has recently