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Rinascimento conteso

'Rinascimento conteso' aims to construct a dialogue with challenges to the historiographical paradigm of a supposedly triumphant Renaissance, responding to sound criticisms of the term’s elitist connotations.

Ecology and Aesthetics. Environmental Approaches in Art History (e/ae)

Ecological and aesthetic theories are intertwined in multiple ways. The project opens a dialogue with archeology, anthropology and history of science concerned with the "anthropocene", rethinking the nature/culture divide in a transcultural perspective, including notions of heritage and sustainability, creation and consumption.

The Ligurian Complex. Case Studies in Ecology and Aesthetics

The project examines the complex overlaying and interpenetration of horizontal, vertical, or entangled spaces in Liguria, which are a challenge for an art historical investigation of both the production of landscape, terraforming, the interaction of human and non-human factors, and their aesthetics.

OSCOP – Observing South Caucasus’ Historical Landscape: An Open Photo Archive

The OSCOP project aims to critically recover the collection of photographs on the cultural heritage of the South Caucasus taken in the Soviet period by scholars working at the Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena, founded in Milan by Adriano Alpago Novello in 1976.

Objects of Migration, Photo-Objects of Art History: Encounters in an Archive

Objects of Migration, Photo-Objects of Art History: Encounters in an Archive is a joint project by the Photothek and the artist Massimo Ricciardo. It links questions of the archive with burning issues of global migration, rhetorics of value and cultural heritage.

Iconologies and Iconospheres of the Sea, ca. 1200–1650, III: Liquid Materialities

The project investigates the interdependencies of art and nature and the production of knowledge in mainly Western, pre-modern worlds, by studying the...

Die Erbauung der Seele. Leon Battista Albertis Dialog Über die Seelenruhe

Das Projekt widmet sich der ersten deutschen Übersetzung und Kommentierung von Leon Battista Albertis Dialog Profugiorum ab aerumna libri III, au...

Cultural Possessions

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is a complex legal structure that serves as the subject of this art historical and artistic investigat...

4A Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics (2019–2023)

Eine Kooperation des Kunsthistorischen Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut, und der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz zusammen mit der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und dem Forum Transregionale Studien

Digital Humanities Lab

The Digital Humanities Laboratory (DH Lab) is an interdisciplinary research center within the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz that focuses on in...

The Art of Containment

The Art of Containment is a long-term collaborative research project concerned with all kinds of vessels and containers, their materiality, shape and decoration, their functions and agency, their biographies and itineraries. The project is the next step in the research focus on concepts and theories, relations and constellations of image and object (Ding/Bild).

Fragile Objects, Coded Knowledge (The Architectural Archive)

In architecture, the construction of disciplinary knowledge has been bound to the making of objects and their processes—be it plans, models, sketches or renderings—and their subsequent preservation: what the archive holds informs the histories that are written. In order to question its seemingly stable categories and include marginalized makers, the Lise Meitner Group’s project embraces fragile objects as a way to understand how disciplinary knowledge has been coded.

Ship Ex-Voto as Objects, Metaphors and Figures of Communality, from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century

A canvas by the French artist Ulysse Butin, presented at the Salon in Paris in 1881, sentimentally evokes a maritime votive scenario showing a young l...

Zwischen Ethos und Exzess? Eine Kritik des Erhabenen

"Le sublime est à la mode" – Jean-François Lyotards 1984 formulierter Satz scheint heute keine Gültigkeit mehr zu besitzen. Gerade in den Visual&...

The City as Archive. Histories of Collecting and Archiving in and the Musealisation of Florence, Eighteenth Century to the Present

In November 1916 a spectacular auction took place in the city of New York, when the art dealer, collector and trained artist Elia Volpi (1858–1938) so...

A Heritage Observatory of Socialist Worlds

This project focuses on the artistic, visual, and material culture of the former Soviet Union and Socialist worlds. Reflecting on the profoundly different realities of the States that were part of the Soviet sphere, as well as on the historiography and narratives, including ideological ones, that have affected issues of museography, restoration, protection and valorization, the project contributes to the understanding of architecture, art and heritage in the twentieth century.

Sounds of Melancholy

Die „Farben“ der Melancholie standen im elisabethanischen Zeitalter hoch im Kurs bei Philosophen und Dichtern, in der Kunst und in der Musik: 88 versc...

On Alinari: Archive in Transition

Artist Armin Linke participates in a dialogue between theory and practice that examines and questions the process of institutionalizing photographic archives.

The King’s Finger, the Mermaid’s Body and the Power of the Sea

This project explores aspects of the transformative power of art by looking at a pair of medieval gloves. Among its particularly rare and precio...

Etho-Ästhetiken des Visuellen

Die weitreichenden Beziehungen zwischen Kunst, Visualität und Ethik benötigen eine grundlegende Untersuchung. Die Kunst- und Bildgeschichte hat sich d...

Practices of Imagination

Against the backdrop of contemporary debates over the creative potential and embodiment of cognitive processes, imagination, a concept that according ...

Languages of Art History

How did conventions of art historical writing come into being across various linguistic traditions, and how have they survived and developed out of inter-linguistic exchange?

Phenomenon ‘Colour’: Aesthetics – Epistemology – Politics

Colour and its perception is dependent on a variety of subjective predispositions and external physical conditions, and is decisively determined by so...

Vasaris Welten und die deutsche kommentierte Ausgabe der 'Vite' in den beiden Editionen von 1550 und 1568

Das Werk und Denken Giorgio Vasaris bildet für die europäische Kunstwissenschaft bis heute das wichtigste Referenzmodell und einen konstanten methodol...

Aesthetics, Art, and Architecture in the Caucasus (Georgia Project)

While most debates regarding intercultural dynamics between Christianity, Islam and Judaism are concerned with the Mediterranean, this project is concentrating on the art and architecture of South Caucasus, an under these premises hardly studied region comprising Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Georgian and Armenian heritage in Eastern Turkey.

„La duplice polarità estetica e storica“ – Methode, Ästhetik und Funktion der Fotografien im Werk der Restauratorin Barbara Schleicher

Die international renommierte Restauratorin Barbara Schleicher (*1937) war in den Jahren 1960–2014 vor allem für Denkmalbehörden, Kirchen und Museen in der Toskana tätig.

Storia dell'arte e catastrofi: L'italia sismica (sta-sis)

Un progetto transdisciplinare incentrato sul ruolo della storia dell’arte negli scenari post-catastrofe, con un’attenzione particolare al paesaggio e al patrimonio culturale italiani.

GAP – Graffiti Art in Prison

GAP – Graffiti Art in Prison connects Palazzo Chiaramonte (Steri) in Palermo with artistic expression in prisons today. This interdisciplinary project, funded by the EU Program Erasmus+, incorporates scientific research, didactic and artistic programs, and social engagement.

Fotografie als Instrument und Medium der Kunstgeschichte

Historische Fotosammlungen, die zu kunsthistorischen Dokumentationszwecken angelegt wurden, bilden beispielhaft die methodische und inhaltliche Geschichte des Faches ab.

Heritage, Art History, Tourism (H.A.T.)

H.A.T. was launched in 2019 as a platform for transdisciplinary conversations and research on the entanglement between heritage, art history, and tourism in a global horizon. The project is concerned with landscapes and territory, and with historical and contemporary dynamics of archaeology, architecture, site management and exploitation.

Photo Archives

'Photo Archives' ist eine offene wissenschaftliche Veranstaltungsreihe, die sich Fragen der Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Fotoarchiven, Fotografie und akademischen Disziplinen widmet.

Photo-Objects, Cultural Displays, and Rhetorics of Value

Systems of value impact the lives of photographs as well as the work practices in art-historical photo archives.

The Space of Childhood: The Adler Collection between Architecture, Art, History, Pedagogy and Creativity

This project studies a recent donation to the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan: the unpublished correspondence of the architects Hedwig Feldmann and Hans Edward Adler, dating back to their stay in the USSR from 1930 to 1933, as well as their collection of 257 Soviet children’s books, most of which were published between the 1920s and 1933.

Transregional Art Histories. Actors, Spaces, Ecologies from the 13th Century to the Present

Die Research Group widmet sich der Geschichte der Kunst und der ästhetischen Praktiken aus transregionaler und ökologischer Perspektive. Mit einem Schwerpunkt auf der Materialität werden Kunstwerke oder ästhetische Praktiken im Verhältnis zu Orten, Räumen und Umgebungen untersucht.

Coded Objects

"Coded Objects" stellt als methodische Perspektive jegliche Annahme "neutraler" Technologie oder immaterieller Bürokratie in Frage. Stattdessen untersucht die Lise-Meitner-Gruppe, wie Prozesse durch Objekte Werte formen—und wie Objekte wiederum gesellschaftliche Prozesse formatieren.

CENOBIUM - Ein Projekt zur multimedialen Darstellung romanischer Kreuzgangkapitelle im Mittelmeerraum

CENOBIUM verfolgt das Ziel, einen Beitrag zur Analyse der komplexen Dynamiken künstlerischen Austausches im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert zu leisten und bedient sich dabei hochauflösender Digitalfotografie, Video, 3D-Scanning und einer interaktiven Weboberfläche.

Studies on the Photography, Laboratory, and Archival Practice of Anton Hautmann around 1860

Anton Hautmann, who was born in Munich in 1821, settled in Florence as a sculptor in 1849, where he was also active as a photographer from 1858 until his death in 1862. As one of the pioneers of stereoscopic photography, he is best known for his views of Florentine architecture and the cityscape.

Bilderfahrzeuge. Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconology

Der Forschungsverbund hat zum Ziel, die Migration von Bildern, Artefakten und Ideen aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive zu erforschen. Dabei geht es besonders um Beziehungen zwischen Kulturen, die sich in Zeit und Ort, Sprache, Religion und politischer Ordnung unterscheiden, und um die theoretischen Implikationen von solchen Migrations-, Transformations- und Interaktionsprozessen.

4A Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics

4A_Lab möchte einen neuen Dialog zwischen Kunstgeschichte, Archäologie, Ethnologie und Ästhetik und anderen Disziplinen in Gang bringen mit Blick auf Objekte, Praktiken, Ökologien und Narrationen.

Il Progetto EUPLOOS

Il Progetto Euploos intende promuovere un dialogo internazionale tra la comunità dei ricercatori e degli studiosi offrendo uno strumento di ricerca in...

Aktion ǀ Retraktion: Tschechoslowakische Kunst und Philosophie im internationalen Kontext, 1945–1989

Die in den letzten Jahren zu beobachtende Tendenz, die eindimensionale, noch immer zutiefst westlich geprägte Geschichte des (Post-)Modernismus infrag...

Empires, Environments, Objects

Max-Planck Partner Group 2022-2027
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima – Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz

The Photographers’ Sales Catalogue Collection of the Photothek

Photographers’ Sales Catalogues are essential sources for the study of professional photographers, photographic ateliers as well as the photographs themselves since they contain important information concerning techniques, circulation, dating and attribution.

Sacred Landscapes:
Between Materiality, Transportability and Narration (Jerusalem Project)

Sacred Landscapes, in particular deserts and mountains are liminal spaces and also places of aesthetic production or response. Their dimensions are material, narrative and iconic, and they are connected to monumental sacred sites. The long-term Jerusalem project is concerned with all these aspects and analyses the ways in which they are intertwined.

The Aesthetics of Marble

The project combines geo-aesthetics with an exploration of the metaphorical and transmaterial dimension of marble. The historical focus spans from Late Antiquity to the twenty-first century, looking at certain “marble moments”, mostly in the history of architecture, such as Roman and Byzantine wall decoration, early Omayyad art, Venetian medieval marble cladding, Roman baroque chapels, and the early twentieth century rethinking of wall decoration.

Perspektivwechsel: Kunst und Philosophie nach Wittgenstein

Im Vorwort zu den Philosophischen Untersuchungen beschreibt Ludwig Wittgenstein das Resultat seiner langjährigen Denkbewegungen wie folgt: "Die philos...

Ethik und Architektur

Das Spektrum der Fragen nach dem Verhältnis von Ethik und Architektur ist breit. Es reicht von der Vitruv- und Aristotelesrezeption des Trecento über Überlegungen zur moralischen Dimension von Architektur im 18. Jahrhundert bis hin zur aktuellen Theorie und Praxis des Bauens.

Materiality and (In-)Visibility: Women in Socialist and Post-Socialist Public Spaces

This trans-disciplinary project explores the multiple presences of women within socialist and post-socialist public spaces, focusing on their represen...

Einzelforschungen

Il Rinascimento importato. Firenze e la nuova architettura russa (XV–XVI)

Federica Rossi

Nature & Nation: Art, Design and Political Ecologies in the Twentieth Century

Sria Chatterjee

Ephemere Architektur im kunsttheoretischen Diskurs (1660/61–1789)

Anne Spagnolo-Stiff

Zwischen Spiritismus, Futurismus und Science-Fiction: die "geniale Wienerin" Edyth von Haynau (1884–1978)

Lisa Hanstein

The Queen of Genoa and Baroque Territorial Aesthetics

Davide Ferri

The Lives of Things in Mesoamerica

Sanja Savkić Šebek

Decolonising Museum Narratives: A Comparative Study

Shraddha Bhatawadekar

Picturing Love in Renaissance Italy: Boccaccio, Petrarch and the Return of Cupid

Rebecca Bowen

Fungi in the Early Modern Low Countries: Image-forming, Ethnomycology and beyond

Lucas Vanhevel

Blicke auf Platz und Skulptur – Photographien der Piazza della Signoria in Florenz

Stephanie Hanke

The Liber insularum Archipelagi by Cristoforo Buondelmonti

Beatrice Blümer

Liminal Spaces in Coastal East Africa. Archipelagic Thinking and Transcultural Art Histories

Vera-Simone Schulz

Ancient Art Exhibitions in Italy between 1877 and 1938 and the Rediscovery of the Seventeenth Century

Giada Policicchio

Infiltrating Artifacts. Florence and Tuscany in their Mediterranean and Global Entanglements

Vera-Simone Schulz

Drawing and the Making of Architecture

Dario Donetti

Medieval and Byzantine Collections Between the XIX and XX Century: Fascination and Dispersion

Camilla Musci

The Art of Diplomacy: Artistic Exchange Between Italy and Safavid Iran, 1600–1700

Alexandria Brown-Hedjazi

"The future is our only goal". Soviet Imaginaire and the Past

Federica Rossi

Die frühen Jahre von Leopoldo Cicognaras Kunstbibliothek

Barbara Steindl

Die Farben der Papageien: Exotische Vögel in der Genueser Malerei des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts

Stephanie Hanke

Le firme delle artiste nella prima età moderna

Samuel Vitali

Elite Patronage and the Business of Spirituality: Commissioning Religious Art in Renaissance Florence

Stephanie Azzarello

Pierre Belons "L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux" (1555) – Naturhistorische Bild- und Sammlungspraxis zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert

Christine Kleiter

Die Stiltheorie der Carracci – eine Neubewertung

Samuel Vitali

‘Translating, Fashioning, Meaning: the Patronage of Girolamo Basso (1435? – 1507) and Domenico della Rovere (1442 – 1501) between Turin, Savona, Loreto and Rome’

Matteo Chirumbolo

From Representation to Presence: Reconstituting the Islamic Art Museum through Performing and Contemporary Arts

Philip Geisler

Armenian Architecture and the Romanesque: A New Perspective

Beatrice Spampinato

Practices of Entanglement. Mediating Art, Knowledge, and Trade between Florence and Flanders in the Early Modern Era (c. 1550 – 1680)

Madeline Delbé

Schwellenräume zwischen Stadt und Meer: Italienische Hafenanlagen der Frühen Neuzeit als Eingangspätze der Stadt

Stephanie Hanke

The Gardens of Qaiserbagh: Between Myth, Reality and Illusion

Parul Singh

Plague, Image, Cult: Image Production and Social Resilience in the Second Pandemic Age

Nils Weber

The Art and Architecture of the Kingdom of Georgia in the 10th and 11th Centuries

Irene Giviashvili

Forschungsbereiche

Forschungsthemen im Überblick
Abteilung Gerhard Wolf
Research Group Hannah Baader
Research Group Hana Gründler
Lise-Meitner-Gruppe Anna-Maria Meister
Auswärtiges Mitglied Jaś Elsner
Forschungsprogramm 4A_Lab
Direktor emeritus Alessandro Nova
Direktor emeritus Max Seidel
Photothek
Digital Humanities
Promotionsprojekte
Postdoc-Projekte
Projekte der Mitarbeitenden
Kooperationsprojekte
Assoziierte Projekte
Abgeschlossene Projekte

Forschung

Rinascimento conteso

Ecology and Aesthetics. Environmental Approaches in Art History (e/ae)

The Ligurian Complex. Case Studies in Ecology and Aesthetics

OSCOP – Observing South Caucasus’ Historical Landscape: An Open Photo Archive

Objects of Migration, Photo-Objects of Art History: Encounters in an Archive

Iconologies and Iconospheres of the Sea, ca. 1200–1650, III: Liquid Materialities

Die Erbauung der Seele. Leon Battista Albertis Dialog Über die Seelenruhe

Cultural Possessions

4A Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics (2019–2023)

Digital Humanities Lab

The Art of Containment

Fragile Objects, Coded Knowledge (The Architectural Archive)

Ship Ex-Voto as Objects, Metaphors and Figures of Communality, from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century

Zwischen Ethos und Exzess? Eine Kritik des Erhabenen

The City as Archive. Histories of Collecting and Archiving in and the Musealisation of Florence, Eighteenth Century to the Present

A Heritage Observatory of Socialist Worlds

Sounds of Melancholy

On Alinari: Archive in Transition

The King’s Finger, the Mermaid’s Body and the Power of the Sea

Etho-Ästhetiken des Visuellen

Practices of Imagination

Languages of Art History

Phenomenon ‘Colour’: Aesthetics – Epistemology – Politics

Vasaris Welten und die deutsche kommentierte Ausgabe der 'Vite' in den beiden Editionen von 1550 und 1568

Aesthetics, Art, and Architecture in the Caucasus (Georgia Project)

„La duplice polarità estetica e storica“ – Methode, Ästhetik und Funktion der Fotografien im Werk der Restauratorin Barbara Schleicher

Storia dell'arte e catastrofi: L'italia sismica (sta-sis)

GAP – Graffiti Art in Prison

Fotografie als Instrument und Medium der Kunstgeschichte

Heritage, Art History, Tourism (H.A.T.)

Photo Archives

Photo-Objects, Cultural Displays, and Rhetorics of Value

The Space of Childhood: The Adler Collection between Architecture, Art, History, Pedagogy and Creativity

Transregional Art Histories. Actors, Spaces, Ecologies from the 13th Century to the Present

Coded Objects

CENOBIUM - Ein Projekt zur multimedialen Darstellung romanischer Kreuzgangkapitelle im Mittelmeerraum

Studies on the Photography, Laboratory, and Archival Practice of Anton Hautmann around 1860

Bilderfahrzeuge. Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconology

4A Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics

Il Progetto EUPLOOS

Aktion ǀ Retraktion: Tschechoslowakische Kunst und Philosophie im internationalen Kontext, 1945–1989

Empires, Environments, Objects

The Photographers’ Sales Catalogue Collection of the Photothek

Sacred Landscapes: Between Materiality, Transportability and Narration (Jerusalem Project)

The Aesthetics of Marble

Perspektivwechsel: Kunst und Philosophie nach Wittgenstein

Ethik und Architektur

Materiality and (In-)Visibility: Women in Socialist and Post-Socialist Public Spaces

Einzelforschungen

Il Rinascimento importato. Firenze e la nuova architettura russa (XV–XVI)

Nature & Nation: Art, Design and Political Ecologies in the Twentieth Century

Ephemere Architektur im kunsttheoretischen Diskurs (1660/61–1789)

Zwischen Spiritismus, Futurismus und Science-Fiction: die "geniale Wienerin" Edyth von Haynau (1884–1978)

The Queen of Genoa and Baroque Territorial Aesthetics

The Lives of Things in Mesoamerica

Decolonising Museum Narratives: A Comparative Study

Picturing Love in Renaissance Italy: Boccaccio, Petrarch and the Return of Cupid

Fungi in the Early Modern Low Countries: Image-forming, Ethnomycology and beyond

Blicke auf Platz und Skulptur – Photographien der Piazza della Signoria in Florenz

The Liber insularum Archipelagi by Cristoforo Buondelmonti

Liminal Spaces in Coastal East Africa. Archipelagic Thinking and Transcultural Art Histories

Ancient Art Exhibitions in Italy between 1877 and 1938 and the Rediscovery of the Seventeenth Century

Infiltrating Artifacts. Florence and Tuscany in their Mediterranean and Global Entanglements

Drawing and the Making of Architecture

Medieval and Byzantine Collections Between the XIX and XX Century: Fascination and Dispersion

The Art of Diplomacy: Artistic Exchange Between Italy and Safavid Iran, 1600–1700

"The future is our only goal". Soviet Imaginaire and the Past

Die frühen Jahre von Leopoldo Cicognaras Kunstbibliothek

Die Farben der Papageien: Exotische Vögel in der Genueser Malerei des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts

Le firme delle artiste nella prima età moderna

Elite Patronage and the Business of Spirituality: Commissioning Religious Art in Renaissance Florence

Pierre Belons "L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux" (1555) – Naturhistorische Bild- und Sammlungspraxis zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert

Die Stiltheorie der Carracci – eine Neubewertung

‘Translating, Fashioning, Meaning: the Patronage of Girolamo Basso (1435? – 1507) and Domenico della Rovere (1442 – 1501) between Turin, Savona, Loreto and Rome’

From Representation to Presence: Reconstituting the Islamic Art Museum through Performing and Contemporary Arts

Armenian Architecture and the Romanesque: A New Perspective

Practices of Entanglement. Mediating Art, Knowledge, and Trade between Florence and Flanders in the Early Modern Era (c. 1550 – 1680)

Schwellenräume zwischen Stadt und Meer: Italienische Hafenanlagen der Frühen Neuzeit als Eingangspätze der Stadt

The Gardens of Qaiserbagh: Between Myth, Reality and Illusion

Sacred Landscapes:
Between Materiality, Transportability and Narration (Jerusalem Project)