CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline: 16 May 2008

Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting

19-21 March 2009

UCLA & The Getty Museum, Malibu

The Study of Renaissance Inventories

In light of the efflorescence of scholarly interest in early modern
collecting, this panel will examine the historical documents that provide us
with some of the most salient information about collections' contents and
organization. Inventories have long been used by scholars to assess the
size and composition of collections, to track the provenance of objects and
to better understand the tastes of a particular patron. We contend that the
study of inventories can, in addition to opening new avenues of
investigations into collecting practices, also incite practical and
methodological questions pertinent to the study of Renaissance art, science
and culture. The sorts of inventories we foresee examining include
inventories of palaces, libraries, collections, studioli, Kunstkammern,
ships, etc. Among the questions this panel seeks to ask are: How did
inventories function
What can inventories tell us about the storage,
display and movement of objects
How can we track the exchange of objects
between collections through the study of inventories
How can we translate
the language of inventories
We welcome case studies of individual
inventories as well as papers that examine methodological concerns bearing
on the study of various inventories.

Please send a 150 abstract, paper title and CV to both Jessica Keating (
j-keatingnorthwestern.edu) and Lia Markey (lmarkeyuchicago.edu).
Deadline: 16 May 2008
Speakers must be members of RSA at the time of the Conference.

--
Jessica Keating
Samuel H. Kress Fellow
Das Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte
Meiserstraße, 10
München, D-80333
GERMANY