In the project’s first year, I was affiliated as a Visiting Fellow in the History Department of Princeton University, working with Prof. Anthony Grafton. In this period, I mainly performed work in two directions. First, I analyzed the quantitative methods of architects in the antiquarian tradition and began work on a specific Venetian patron of architecture, Daniele Barbaro (1514-1570). The figure of Barbaro is particularly interesting because he blended historical and naturalistic interests. In particular, I studied and analyzed Barbaro’s involvement in the planning, establishment and development of the Botanical Garden of the University of Padua in the mid-sixteenth century. Second, with the key advice of Prof. Grafton, I conducted an extensive study of current trends and approaches to the study of the antiquarian tradition, developing new methodologies for the combined study of antiquarian and scientific practices.
In the project’s second year, I was affiliated with the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at my host institution, Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice, under the supervision of Prof. Marco Sgarbi. During this final phase, I further expanded my investigation of sixteenth-century antiquarian culture in Veneto but also considered its ramifications and the connections of the antiquarian architects from Veneto to the rest of Italy and the Roman context in particular. I further developed a methodology that I developed in the first year of my fellowship, that is to say, the combined study of antiquarian and naturalistic epistemic practices.
During the fellowship, I developed several actions for disseminating partial research results, culminating in the organization of an international workshop held at Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice, in May 2023. The two-day meeting brought together some of the leading scholars working on the history of collections, scholarship, and the sciences to discuss and study preliminary cases on a new and interdisciplinary line of research on the links between antiquarian and scientific knowledge. The workshop included established and well-known scholars, as well as early-career scholars and doctoral students. Papers from the workshop are in preparation for a joint publication. I also signed a contract with Oxford University Press to produce a monograph developed out of the ANTIQUITATES project.
