Telephone number:	+31 (0)71 527 2751
E-Mail:	e.j.goudriaan@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department:	Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, KG Oude beeldende kunst
Office Address:	Johan Huizingagebouw Doelensteeg 16 2311 VL Leiden Room number 2.18a
Personal Homepage:	www.hum.leiden.edu/​icd/​organisation/​members/​goudriaanej

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Fields of interest

Art brokerage networks in Early modern Italy, Italian Renaissance & Baroque Art, Cultural networks & academies in early modern Florence

Research

Art historical research in late 16th and early 17th century Florence has mostly to do with art commissions of the Medici family. Besides the Medici family however, there was a rich cultural society, in which many Florentine patricians participated. They commissioned art for their own palaces, villas, chapels and gardens, they collected paintings and antiquities and they organised themselves in formal and informal academies. They experienced many new cultural influences, which they subsequently introduced in Florence, all thanks to their diplomatic missions to other courts. Very little of this rich cultural world is still known to us today, because many of their collections were lost or dispersed and because most of the patrician palaces that did still remain, are inaccessible for visitors. This in contrast to the Medici collections and palaces, which can all be visited and which have always been preserved well and remain almost entirely intact until today. Because of this contrast the cultural contribution of Florentine patricians to the society was misrepresented. The cultural world of the patricians and their importance for the cultural society in early modern Florence can be reconstructed very well by means of archival research.

Thanks to their high social standing, the Florentine patricians could operate as patrons, brokers and clients at the same time. They were key figures between members of the Medici family and artists and between the Roman and Florentine court. In the coming 4 years I will focus my research on four Florentine patricians and their brokerage activities between Tuscan artists and powerful patrons in Florence and Rome. These four patricians are Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (1568-1647), Giovanni Niccolini (1544-1611), his son Filippo Niccolini (1586-1666) and Piero Guicciardini (1569-1626). In my dissertation I will answer the following question: In which way did the brokerage activities of Florentine patricians innovate the cultural life in early modern Florence and how did they contribute to the geographical and social mobility of artists? Besides secondary literature and writings of contemporaries, my main sources are the correspondences of the patricians with artists and patrons, which have been preserved in family archives in Florence.              

My research originated from the ideas of Henk Th. van Veen about the cultural habit of Florentine patricians (1530-1670) and was further developed by analyzing publications about brokerage in early modern Europe and comparing the methods of brokerage used in these social networks with the strategies of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger.

Curriculum Vitae

Education 

2006-2008Research Master Art History & Archaeology (RuG), summa cum laude.
Final thesis (in Dutch language): ‘Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (1568-1647). Patronage strategies of a Florentine patrician in his role as social-cultural broker in Early modern Italy.’ Supervisor: Prof. dr. Henk Th. van Veen
Specialization: Italian Renaissance Art (1250-1700)  

2001-2006 Bachelor & Master Roman Languages & Cultures (RuG), summa cum laude.
Final thesis (in Italian language): ‘Dante e il Giudizio Universale. L’influenza della concezione dantesca dell’aldilà sull’inferno nella pittura monumentale italiana dal Trecento al Cinquecento.’ (translation: Dante and the Last Judgement. The influence of Dante’s view of the hereafter on representations of the Hell in Italian monumental painting from the 13th-16th centuries.)
Supervisor: Prof. dr. P.G. Bossier
Specialization: Italian Renaissance Literature & Culture (1250-1700)
 
2003-2006 Bachelor Art History (RuG): several subjects about Italian and Dutch Medieval & Renaissance art & architecture (1250-1600)

Secondary education: VWO (2001, Haags Montessori Lyceum, The Hague)  

Publications

(In Dutch language) Vasari’s Ragionamenti and the Medici-myth in the Palazzo Vecchio. An analysis of the ‘senso nostro’ and the ‘molto doppia orditura’, Incontri, 2009/2 (forthcoming)