LIS 698: Florentine Art and Culture: Museum and Library Research and Documentation

Summer 2011

Professor Maria Antonia Rinaldi

This WordPress is intended to display my final project for the class LIS 698, which I took while spending five weeks in Florence, Italy. This final project is an exhibition catalogue featuring 12 objects from Florentine museums and churches that illustrate my theme of Humanism in Renaissance Florence. My project intends to make clear through these objects how the Renaissance had its catalyst in Florence and the Humanist ideals that lay behind these changes. The pieces in my exhibit, while mostly famous for portraying some aspect of Florence, have not often been brought together under the idea of the Humanist spirit that spurred their creation. I choose the most well-known examples to remind viewers of the true meaning of “Renaissance” and how important this rebirth was in the history of humankind.

Many of the pieces reside in the famed Uffizi Gallery and others can be found at various institutions and cathedrals throughout the city of Florence. All pieces were as important and groundbreaking in their day as they remain today, and in bringing them all together , I hope to succeed in showing their revolutionary and pointedly Humanist style of creation. Please explore the other tabs containing the exhibit objects, my links and bibliography pages, and the catalogue essay.