Artistic Exchange between Florence and Rome in the Seventeenth Century

Lisa Bourla, University of Pennsylvania (bourlasas.upenn.edu); Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, Art Institute of Chicago (estraussmanpflanzerartic.edu)

As it endeavors to redress the unjustified, yet ongoing perception of Seicento Florence as an artistically "stagnant backwater,” scholarship in the field, which has tended to focus on isolated achievements, cordoned off from contemporaneous developments in other cultural centers, could benefit from an exploration of the city’s dynamic artistic interactions, which extended well beyond the Tuscan borders. To commemorate the quatercentenary of the death of the Florentine Lodovico Cigoli (1559-1613), who inaugurated the dominant artistic lineage of the Florentine Seicento, even as he left an indelible mark on the art of Rome, we call for papers that challenge the standard historiography of Italian Baroque art by examining artistic exchange specifically between the Grand Ducal capital and the Holy See in the seventeenth century.

Topics could include the migration of artworks and artists from Florence to Rome and vice versa, undermining the notion of discrete cultural centers and clear-cut artistic identities. For instance, the Tuscan-born Pietro da Cortona, who initially trained in Florence, created one of the iconic works of the Roman Baroque – the ceiling fresco in the Palazzo Barberini, glorifying a pope who was himself Florentine. Papers also may consider how Counter-Reformation concerns informed these artistic interdependencies. For example, Florentine designers of a new type of architecture, the polychrome revetment chapel, looked to the early Christian models of Rome, while Roman artists of religious subjects sought inspiration for their use of theatricality in the magnificent Medici spectacles staged in Florence, the birthplace of opera. Another possibility could be the competitiveness between the art academies in the two cities and how the foundation of the Accademia Fiorentina in Rome (1673) fit into this evolving dialog. Interdisciplinary papers are also welcome (e.g., overlaps with musicology, the history of theater, or the history of science).

Instructions: Please submit to both organizers a 150 word proposal and a 1 page CV by June 1.