The international workshop ‘Flanders in Florence: Architectural Exchanges in Context, 1400-1600’, organized by VISU members Caterina Cardamone and Pieter Martens in collaboration with Gianluca Belli, takes place at the NIKI in Florence on 17-18 October 2024.
Among the speakers are VISU members Caterina Cardamone, Pieter Martens and Alicia Rojas Costa.
Please click here for the full programme.
The workshop brings together scholars from various disciplines to discuss the current state of research on architectural exchanges between the Low Countries and Florence at the time of the Renaissance. Focusing on exchanges from North to South, the aim is to improve our understanding of how the intense commercial, artistic, political and military ties with ‘le Fiandre’ have enriched Florence’s architectural culture.
Economic and political historians have extensively documented the circulation of people in both directions, and the impact of Netherlandish painting on Florentine art is also well-studied, but the transfer of architectural ideas, images, materials, and techniques from the Low Countries to Florence remains a blind spot in scholarship on Renaissance Florence’s internationalism. Moreover, the conventional historiographical assumption that Italians generally rejected Northern, Gothic architecture as barbarian also needs questioning.
As the first expert meeting of a recently initiated research project, the workshop’s threefold objective is to clarify the broader context of these exchanges and perceptions, to discuss the latest scholarship on the subject, and to explore possible sources and methods for further research.
This workshop is held at the NIKI in Florence. It is organized by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Research group VISU) in collaboration with the Università degli Studi di Firenze (Dipartimento di Architettura) within the framework of the research project ‘Flanders in Florence: Architectural Exchanges from North to South, 1400-1600’ funded by the FWO (Research Foundation - Flanders), under the direction of Pieter Martens and Gianluca Belli.
The workshop is not open to the public. If you are interested in attending, please contact dr. Caterina Cardamone (caterina.cardamone@vub.be).
