Christine Contrada earned a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance history from Stony Brook University in New York. She has long taught European history with a focus on Italian history and culture. During the pandemic summer, Dr. Contrada ran the entire 1,185 km length of Italy virtually putting sneakers to pavement from Saratoga to Montauk Point.
There are multiple paths to Italian citizenship, but only one is a birthright. Jus sanguinis, or “right of blood”, is Italian citizenship that is passed to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on because these descendants are in the direct line of succession to an Italian citizen who did not give up citizenship through […]
As summer begins its slow wane, it offers a particularly poignant stage for the pulse of the city to reset and reflect. On September 7, Florentines usually flood into piazza della Santissima Annunziata to celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary. The feast day, which became popular in the Latin Church in the seventh century, […]
While the eyes of the world are fixated on the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, 2019 also marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Cosimo I de’ Medici. The second Medici duke was instrumental in stabilizing Medici rule after the collapse of the Florentine Republic. A quincentenary shines a direct […]
"The Innocents of Florence" asks us to reconsider why the cradle of renaissance civilization offered a cradle to its abandoned babies. It was not humanitarianism, but it was humanism.
At this time of year more than any other, Florence invites us to be cognizant of the complexities lurking in the liminal, transitional spaces that illuminate the city’s countless historical thresholds. Before we find ourselves like Dante, halfway through our lives, frightened and feeling like we are lost in a dark wood, we should remember […]
Florence’s Laurentian Library, commissioned in 1523 by Pope Clement VII to celebrate his family’s political and ecclesiastical ascension to power, continues to be the home of numerous remarkable manuscripts. One of which, the Codex Amiatinus, has returned to England as a crown jewel in the critically acclaimed Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War exhibition at the […]
Horses were frequently represented in the cultural production of pre-modern Western societies. Paradoxically, because they are so common, the horse is an easy image to dismiss in favor of the exploration of more exotic themes, which explains why the horse often becomes an invisible beast of burden. The telling message of a modern Italian idiom […]
The inaccuracies of Da Vinci's anatomical drawings should not overshadow the boldness of his efforts. Rather, they should serve to highlight that his studies were only in their infancy.
