News
Paper at AISU, Palermo (2025)
Lorenzo Vigotti will present the paper “Villas as displays of power and territorial control in the Florentine countryside between the Late 14th and Early 15th Centuries,” at the Biennal Congress The Crossroad City organized by AISU (Associazione Italiana di Storia Urbana) in Palermo, Italy, 10-13 September 2025.
Modelling 3D Palazzo Medici (2025)
Vigotti spent two weeks in July 2025 collaborating with Prof. George Bent, Dave Pfaff, and their students at the Integrative and Quantitative (IQ) Center at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, VA. Prof. Bent’s Florence As It Was project has recently produced a full point cloud model of the Palazzo Medici in Florence, which will be a valuable resource for our 3D reconstruction of the palace as it appeared at the time of the inventory taken upon the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492.
Scanning Palazzo Vecchio (2025)
Vigotti joined Prof. George Bent (W&L University) and Scott McAvoy (an expert in 3D data processing, reconstruction, and archiving at UCSD) scanning the entirety of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence in Spring 2025. Together with thermographic scans, the team will reconstruct the appearance of the palace before the radical transformations operated under Cosimo I in the 16th century.
Florentia Illuminated consortium received a NEH grant (2024)
The consortium of Florentia Illuminated, headquartered at the University of Chicago’s Department of Art History, received $349,969 in total from NEH to build a platform that will bring together data from five individual digital humanities projects focused on the cultural history of late medieval and early modern Florence (see the announcement). Pupilli received $39,000 to include ca. 400 inventories in the online database.
Lecture at Washington & Lee University (2024)
Vigotti presented his research on Florentine domestic inventories to faculty members and students at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, VA. He expanded on his previous work concerning the female presence in Florentine palaces and the gendered division of interior space.
OCHRE Workshop in Chicago (2024)
In late March 2024, the PIs of the Florentia Illuminated Consortium met in Chicago to be introduced to the University of Chicago’s OCHRE Data Service, which facilitates the use of the Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment (OCHRE) worldwide to record, integrate, analyze, publish, and preserve cultural and historical information in all of its digital forms. The OCHRE platform is an innovative, comprehensive database system suitable for any research data.
Paper at RSA Chicago (2024)
Vigotti has presented his paper titled “Searching for Flanders in Florentine Household Archives, 1388-1500,” at the RSA Annual Meeting in Chicago, 21-23 March. This is a preliminary study of the content in and spatial organization of Florentine domestic space as listed in inventories.
Paper at University Roma Tre (2023)
Lorenzo Vigotti has participated in the conference Architettura e cultura dell’abitare nella villa tardogotica e rinascimentale at the School of Architecture of University Roma3 on 18-19 May 2023. He presented the paper: “Gli inventari delle ville fiorentine.”
Lecture at Archivio di Stato di Firenze (2023)
Lorenzo Vigotti has presented a lecture titled: “L’organizzazione della casa e villa fiorentina durante l’oligarchia Albizzesca, 1384-1432,” at the State Archives of Florence on 13 February 2023. This lecture highlighted the wealth and diversity of data contained in Florentine inventories and demonstrated how this information can be used to reconstruct the original organization of the space and the daily life of the inhabitants.
Paper at ICMS (2022)
Lorenzo Vigotti has participated at the conference International Congress on Medieval Studies held at westrn Michigan University in Kalamazoo on 9-14 May 2022. He presented the paper: “The Organization of the Florentine House and Villa at the End of Trecento (1380-1400).”
Paper at RSA in Dublin (2022)
Lorenzo Vigotti has presented the paper “Female Actors and Gendered Spaces Inside the Florentine Home in Late Trecento” during the Renaissance Society of America annual meeting in Dublin, 30 March-2 April 2022. This research is based on the 143 domestic inventories from the Pupilli collection dated 1386-93.
Paper at Andrew Ladis Memorial Trecento Conference (2022)
Lorenzo Vigotti has participated with the paper “Variety and Display of Artworks in Domestic Settings in Tuscany, 1384-1432,” at the third Andrew Ladis Memorial Trecento Conference held at the Frist Art Museum and Vanderbilt University in Nashiville on 11-13 January 2022. This paper highlights the presence of artworks in domestic settings in Florentine urban and rural residences.
Post-doc at the Kunsthistorisches Insitut in Florence (2020-22)
Lorenzo Vigotti received a 2-year post-doc fellowship under the supervision of Director Alessandro Nova at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Plank Institut. During his tenure, he was able to fully scan the entire Pupilli collection and prepare papers on three different topics: the display of artworks, the presence of female actors, and the first appearance of private libraries and studioli.
Dissertation on the origin of the Renaissance Palace (2019)
Lorenzo Vigotti concluded his dissertation titled “The Origin of the Renaissance Palace: Private Architecture during the Florentine Oligarchy, 1378-1432” in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. In his dissertation, the Pupilli inventories play an important role to reconstruct the original appearance of three Florentine palaces: Palazzo Alessandri, Palazzo da Uzzano/Capponi, Palazzo Busini/Bardi-Serzelli.
PALATIUM Master Class (2015)
Lorenzo Vigotti attended the Master Class PALATIUM – Court Residences as Places of Exchange in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1400–1700 organized at LMU Institut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, Germany in March 2015. The program explored late medieval and early modern European court residence or ‘palace’ in an interdisciplinary perspective, and focused on the interaction between palace architecture, including its interior decorations and stately collections, and the ceremonial. During this unique experience, the original idea of the Pupilli project was conceived.