The Medici Archive Project and Tel Aviv University (TAU) are happy to invite you to the conference 'The Medici and the Jews: Religion, Culture, and Urban Strategies in Early Modern Florence'.

Wednesday, 13 June 2018

09:15-09:45 Gathering

09:45-10:00 - Welcoming Remarks
Aviad Kleinberg (Head, Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv University) and Miriam Eliav-Feldon (Chairperson, The Historical Society of Israel)

10:00-11:30: Session I: The Medici and the Ghetto
Chair: Shai Zamir (University of Michigan)

Stefanie Siegmund (Jewish Theological Seminary) 'The Construction of the Ghetto and the Reconstruction of Gender'
Piergabriele Mancuso (The Medici Archive Project) 'Staging Segregation: Religious Practices, Political Ideology, Financial Planning and the Institution of the Florentine Ghetto'
Lorenzo Vigotti (Columbia University) 'A Real Estate Project in Early Modern Florence: Social Housing and Public Services in the Ghetto'

11:30-12:00 Coffee Break

12:00-13:00 Session II: Jews and Converts in Medici Florence
Chair: Yakov Mascetti (Bar Ilan University)

Samuela Marconcini (Centro Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea, Milan) 'Jewish Converts in Florence after the Establishment of the Ghetto' Tamar Herzig (Tel Aviv University) 'From the Ghetto to the Convent: Ex-Jewish Nuns in Grand Ducal Florence'

13:00-15:00 Lunch Break

15:00-16:30 Session III: Jews and the Social Elites under the Medici
Chair: David S. Katz (Tel Aviv University)

Fabrizio Lelli (Università del Salento) 'Cultural Trends in Jewish Renaissance Florence'
Alessio Assonitis (The Medici Archive Project) 'Italian Ghettos in Early Modern News Networks'
Francesca Bregoli (City University of New York) 'The Merchants at the Casino: Sephardic Elites and Tuscan Culture'

16:30-17:00 Coffee Break

17:00-18:30 Session IV: Jewish Thought in Medici Florence
Chair: Inbar Strul Dabull (Tel Aviv University)

Brendan Dooley (University College Cork) 'Jewish Wisdom, Medici Princes: Kabbalah and More in Grand Ducal Florence'
Cedric Cohen-Skalli (University of Haifa) 'The Socio-Political Space of the Da Pisas and its Cultural Meaning'
Judith Weiss (Ben Gurion University) 'Between Florence and Rome: Giles of Viterbo and the Kabbalah'

Thursday, 14 June 2018

10:00-10:30 Gathering

10:30-12:00 Session V: Jews, Christians, and Cultural Production
Chair: Carlotta Paltrinieri (The Medici Archive Project)

David Malkiel (Bar Ilan University) 'Jewish-Christian Relations in Renaissance Italy: Resolving a Historiographical Debate'
Yakov Z. Mayer (Tel Aviv University) 'Jews and the Florentine Baptistery'
Sefy Hendler (Tel Aviv University) Cellini’s Dog: From Barucco to Baruch Hu, Some Reflections on the Artist’s Identity

12:00-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00-15:30 Session VI: The Venetian Antecedent
Chair: Benjamin Arbel (Tel Aviv University)

Donatella Calabi (Università IUAV di Venezia) 'The Ghetto of Venice: Different Communities, Height of Buildings and Density of Population' Anastazja Buttitta (Ben Gurion University) 'Jews and Art in the Venetian Ghetto'
Martina Massaro (University of Padua) 'A Historical Journey across the Venetian Ghetto Boundaries: From the End of the Republic to the Twentieth Century'

15:30-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00-17:30 Session VII: Conclusions, Final Remarks & Roundtable Discussion
Alessio Assonitis and Tamar Herzig

For more information, see the detailed program on our website:
http://www.medici.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/www.medici.org-poster-conference-tel-aviv.pdf