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OSK-Niki Winter School: Framing the Fragment: (Un)finished histories of Florence | Signup deadline 15 October

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Dates: January 3-12, 2025, two preliminary meetings (dates t.b.a.)
Venue: The Netherlands Interuniversity Institute for Art History Florence (NIKI)
ECTS: 6 EC, to receive after a presentation in situ and a conference paper presented in the auditorium of the NIKI :www.niki-florence.org
Open to: OSK ReMa students and PhD researchers
Convenors: Dr Daantje Meuwissen and Dr Martijn van Beek (Universiteit Utrecht)
Instruction language: All discussions and presentations will be in English

Registration via the website and send a CV and short letter of motivation to osk-fgw@uva.nl.

Deadline for applications: 15 October 2024

This one-week course offers an unconventional approach to the study of Florentine art history. We will turn a blind eye to the usual art historical suspects, and instead focus on the incomplete, neglected, and non-canonical artefacts from Medieval times and the Renaissance to Modernist art and architecture in Florence.

The cross-historical course will study, among others, the oeuvre of the futurist painter Primo Conti through a study trip his house and workshop still kept in Fiesole. In addition, we will study the fragmented gown of Eleonora di Toledo (1522-1562), wife of Cosimo I de Medici (1519-1574), kept in Palazzo Pitti and saved from the grave as a pile of fabric and metal threads. The fragment of the index finger of Saint John the Baptist (1st century BC – 30 AD) kept in Museo Opera del’ Duomo, is a tangible fragment to the history of Florence’s patron saint. The brutalist concrete Chiesa dell ’Autostrade (1960) along the highway Firenze-Milano by the modernist architect Michelucci, offers, with its spatial fragmentation, an unconventional approach to Florentine architectural history as well. The tokens exhibited in Museo Ospedale degli Innocenti provide tangible and intimate fragments, as they were left with the children entrusted to the Ospedale to ensure their survival.

There are two preparatory classes scheduled in November and December 2024 (dates t.b.a.). The lectures will be devoted to the theoretical framework on Fragments and Fragmentation and the knowledge necessary to understand the history of Florence. Practical matters in preparation of our course will be discussed as well. The meetings will be scheduled at the end of the day to prevent overlap and may offered hybrid if necessary.  During our course, a presentation on a pre-selected topic will be given in situ in Florence by each student (pass/fail). The course will be closed by a small symposium in the aula of the NIKI, organized by the students, where a final presentation around the object, theme or case will be given. This means that the course is completely finished after this presentation day.

Assignments and grade:

  1. Short paper summary of the preparatory readings, (reflection report, 2 pages max., pass/fail), hand in before 9th
  2. Presentation on site in Florence, paper based on existing literature (there will be time scheduled for studying and preparing while in Florence), pass/fail;
  3. A) 20 min. conference paper (research topic resonates with theme of the course, literature and discussions on the spot) and B) organizing of the symposium, graded. Students have to create thematic sessions based on readings and discussions during the week; create introductory speeches, concluding remarks, and discussions, keeping in mind length of papers, discussing time, practicalities (breaks etc.). Graded.

 

Preliminary Program

Friday January 3, 2025:                              Arrival. Kick-off meeting at the NIKI at 16.00h, introduction to the resources. Arrival at NIKI is possible from January 2nd on, departure on Jan 12th, but later is possible too (Wednesday 15 the ultimate option).

Saturday January 4, 2025:                        Self study in the library

Sunday January 5, 2025 :                          Morning: self study, Afternoon: Piazza Repubblica (classical fragments); Palazzo Strozzi (fragmented cornice) ; San Salvatore al Vescovo (fragment of early Christian church);

Monday January 6, 2025:                         Morning: Museo Marino Marini (fragmented sculpture, 20th century); Afternoon: Museo San Marco (fragments form Piazza Reppublica)

Tuesday January 7, 2025:                         Morning: Fondazione Primo Conti, Fiesole (fragmented futurist art); Afternoon: Chiesa dell’ Autostrada (spatial fragmentation, 1960)

Wednesday January  8, 2025:                Morning: self study. Afternoon: Palazzo Pitti (fragmented dress Elenora di Toledo, Rosso Fiorentino fragment); Bargello (Fragments Giotto). Evening: visit to Helen Frankenthaler exhibition in Strozzi.

Thursday January 9, 2025:                      Morning: Museo dell Opera del Duomo (finger John the Baptist, unfinished pieta Michelangelo; competitive fragments models Cathedral façade 16th – 19th century). Afternoon: Museo Innocenti (personal, intimate fragments).

Friday January 10, 2025:                           Whole day: preparations for presentation and symposium.

Saturday January 11, 2025:                      Symposium in the aula of the NIKI.

Sunday January 12, 2025:                         Departure from the NIKI

 

(Preliminary) List of study-topics:

  1. Cornice Palazzo Strozzi ;
  2. classical archeological fragments in San Marco;
  3. Sepulchre Rucellai ;
  4. Marino Marini;
  5. San Salvatore al Vescovo;
  6. Dress Eleonora and CappaMagna Cosimo I;
  7. Rosso Fiorentino : 1522 Madonna in Trono e santi;
  8. ‘Other half’ tokens Innocenti;
  9. Primo Conti Futurismo;
  10. Finger John Baptist (Museo Opera del Duomo);
  11. Pietà Michelangelo nonfinito (Museo Opera del Duomo);
  12. Façade models wood Duomo (Museo Opera del Duomo);
  13. Reconstructed exhibiting façade Duomo (Museo Opera del Duomo);
  14. San Miniato: apse mosaic;
  15. San Miniato: floor mosaic;
  16. San Miniato: Cosmatiwork in chapel for Cardinal of Portugal;
  17. Bargello kapel Giotto;
  18. Santissima Trinita: cappella Salimbeni: Spinello Aretino (via Lorenzo Monaco).

 

Ample time will be scheduled to visit Florentine museums on your own as well.

FramingTheFragment_Poster

Preliminary literature:

  1. Tronzo, The fragment. An incomplete history, Los Angelos, 2009
  2. Orban, The culture of Fragments. Words and Images in Futurism and Surrealism, Amsterdam-Atlanta 1997
  3. Nochlin, The Body in Pieces. The Fragment as a metaphor of Modernity, London 1994.
  4. T. Fiorio, ‘Broken sculpture. Michelangelo and the Aestetic of the Fragment’, in: The Genius of the Sculpture in Michelangelo’s work, ex.cat. Montreal Musuem of Fine Arts (1992), Montreal 1992, pp. 69-84.
  5. Arthur J. Difuria, Maarten van Heemskerck’s Rome. Antiquity, memory, and the cult of ruins, Leiden 2019, pp. 29-34.

Participating universities and sister institutions