The Polycentric Renaissance.
Local Identities and Global Connections

The project explores global connections within a very defined context, that of the Iberian monarchy between the 15^th and the 17^th century. It will trace connections between viceroyal kingdoms, from the Mediterranean to Central and South America, which despite their geographical distances were bound together as part of the same world, sharing the same bureaucratic system, same norms, and representations. It considers connections in conceptions of the past, from two different perspectives: on the one hand, that of the destruction and hispanicization of monuments relevant to the local identity of lands; on the other, the strenuous efforts of local communities who used material and documentary traces of their past to face the threat of losing identity within a global empire. Such connections will globalize our understanding of the Italian Renaissance, including Florence. The aim is also to create a premise from which new generations can engage with cultural traditions and heritage which have hitherto been seen as distant and foreign, transforming a shared past into a common present.