Alessio Assonitis (Medici Archive Project, Florence), Archiving the Medici: History and Future (1370s-2020s). Archiving the Academies of Early Modern Italy: Critical methodologies & digital tools, 28 June 2018

1. ARCHIVING THE MEDICI:
HISTORY AND FUTURE (1370S - 2020S)
Alessio Assonitis
ARCHIVING THE ITALIAN ACADEMIES OF EARLY MODERN ITALY:
CRITICAL METHODOLOGIES AND DIGITAL TOOLS
UCL CENTRE FOR CRITICAL HERITAGE STUDIES / CENTRE FOR EARLY MODERN
EXCHANGES
28 JUNE 2018

2. The ‘Medici Archive’ (after 1780s) at the Archivio di
Stato di Firenze
I) Mediceo avanti il Principato
II) Mediceo del Principato
III) Miscellanea Medicea
IV) Scrittoio delle Regie Possessioni
V) Scrittoio delle Fortezze e Fabbriche
VI) Guardaroba Medicea
VII) Guardaroba Medicea Diari di Etichetta
[Carteggio degli Artisti: in part]

3. Archive(s) of the Medici
dates
1370s-1743
producers/curators
Merchants/Bankers
[Popes]
Dukes
Grand Dukes
curators
Lorraine
Napoleon
Italy
locations
“Casa Vecchia” (Via Larga)
Palazzo Medici
Palazzo Vecchio
Palazzo Pitti
Uffizi
Piazza Beccaria
The Web

4. 1360/70s
Earliest Medici Record of Merchant/
Bankers Medici
1537
Cosimo I, Duke of Florence
1743
Death of Anna Maria Luisa
de’ Medici, last member of the
Grand Ducal Dynasty
1768
Jacopo Galluzzi reorganizes the ‘Medici
Archive’ (Segreteria Vecchia) under the
Lorraine Grand Dukes
2013
BIA
The Medici Archive Project
2000
Mediceo avanti il Principato online
Archivio di Stato in Florence
2019
MIA
The
Medici
Archive
Project
[Guardaroba Medicea]
[Scrittoio delle regie possessioni] [Miscellanea Medicea]
“a murky ocean
of papers…”
1860-1950
Division and consolidation of
Medici fondi (Archivio di Stato)
[Mediceo del Principato]
[Mediceo avanti il Principato]
Cosimo I receives the archive
of Medici Merchants / Bankers
[Mediceo avanti il Principato]
which is housed along with
the ducal/personal
correspondence [Mediceo del
Principato]
1541
Alessandro
Duke of
Florence
[MaP/MdP]
1532-37
Giovanni Grasso,
separation into
Segreteria Vecchia
and Archivio Segreto

5. Mediceo avanti il Principato
1370s – 1532/37
165 filze (carte sciolte and bound volumes)
Circa 100,000 - 150,000 folios
Legal, financial, administrative, personal,
family records
Inventories, imperial diplomas, marriage
contracts, legal mandates, papal bulls and
briefs, libri di ricordanze, memoriali, venom
recipes, horoscopes, account books, copies
of wills and contracts
“Inventario delle suppellettili,
mobili, gioie, argenti appartenenti a
Piero di Cosimo de' Medici” (1456)
ASF, Mediceo avanti il Principato
162, fols 11v & 29r
“Entrata e uscita del banco di Giovanni di
Bicci de’ Medici” (1427-1428)
ASF, Mediceo avanti il Principato 154, fol. 7b

6. http://www.archiviodistato.firenze.it (2000)

7. Pontormo
Duke Cosimo I at 17
1537
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti)
Florence
Assassination of Duke Alessandro de'
Medici in January 1537 by his cousin
Lorenzino de' Medici (illustration from a
manuscript account of Alessandro's death
in the Carte Strozziane, Archivio di Stato
di Firenze, circa 1550)

8. Mediceo del Principato
1537 – 1743
The mechanisms that
regulate and curate these
internal administrative
departments as well as all
matters of foreign
diplomacy and familial
affairs are addressed in the
letters of the Medici Grand
Dukes
6429 volumes
4 to 5 million letters
200,000 avvisi
1537 – 1743
7 dukes & grand dukes

9. Mediceo del Principato
1537 – 1743
• Minutes of letters; volumes of copy-letter
books (ca. 320 volumes)
• Letters from the outside world to the Grand
Dukes (ca. 550 volumes)
• Correspondence of Secretaries (ca. 500
volumes)
• Military correspondence; salvacondotti,
passports, ship logs (ca. 350 volumes)
• Letters related to financial and administrative
affairs from cities subject to Medici rule
(Siena, Livorno, Pisa, etc.) (ca. 650 volumes)
• Drafts and copy-letter books of missives to
Florentine ambassadors and agents (ca. 100
volumes)
• Letters from Florentine ambassadors; and
avvisi from Italian and European cities; letter
from foreign regents and diplomats (ca. 3000
volumes)
• Correspondence of Medici Grand Duchesses
and Princes (ca. 1300 volumes)
• Travel reports and journals (ca. 70 volumes)
outbound
incoming
largely incoming,
with some outbound

10. (I) MAPDocSources
(1999-2006)
• Microsoft Access -based program
• only text data entry
• relational database
• Data retrieval in situ
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Transcriptions in situ
Synopses/Regesta
Biographical files
Geographical files
Topographical files

11. Content of Mediceo del Principato
Diplomacy
Commerce
War/Riots
Epidemics
Material Culture
Medicine
Natural Catastrophes
Court Ceremonies
Religious Conflicts/Heresy
Migrations
New World
Urban Planning
Prophecy/Astrology
Jews
Antiquities
Artistic Production
Print Culture
Food and Wine
News Networks
Postal Systems
Archives
Mail

12. Topic Categories: Material Culture

14. (II)
documents.medici.org
(2006-2012)
• coldfusion + mysql
• web-based data retrieval
system
• no data entry
• data imported periodically
from the MSAccess program

16. (III)
BIA
(2012-today)
• JAVA (J2EE) with
Spring Framework
with JSTL Mysql +
Hibernate
• textual data entry
& retrieval
• 27,000
transcriptions
• 18,000
biographical
records
• 90,000
geographical &
topographical
records
• 500,000 digitized
images of folios
from the Mediceo
del Principato
• 4,100 registered
users

20. Possible Dissertation/Articles Topics
• The Postal System in Grand Ducal Tuscany
• The Life and Career of Medici Secretaries/Agents
• Pierfrancesco Riccio [TAKEN!]
• Piero Gelido
• Cosimo Bartoli
• Jacobiglio Ebreo: Medici Informant and Cultural Broker in Florence
and Constantinople
• Cosimo I and the Decameron at the Council of Trent
• Printing and Circulating Heterodox Texts in Tuscany: 1537-1553
• Maria Salviati as Political Broker
• Girolamo Genga: Medici Architect and Diplomat
• The Collection of Curiosities of Cosimo I de’ Medici
• Traveling Musicians in 16th-18th Century Italy
• The Careers of Medici Court Physicians
• Medici Florence as Center of European News
• Archival Science in Medici Tuscany
• Pleasure and Health:Wine Culture at the Medici Court
• The Arno in Medici Tuscany
• Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle and Medici Diplomacy
• Bath Culture in Medici Florence
• Moriscos in Tuscany
• The Medici and the Production of Paper
• The Medici Information Network in Europe
• The Religiosity of Cosimo III de’ Medici
• Migration Patterns in Early Modern Italy
• Coding Language and Ciphering Letters
• Slavery in Medici Tuscany
• The Diplomacy of Giorgio Vasari
• The Language, Poetics and Aesthetics of Avvisi

21. (IV)
BIA TEACHING
(2013-today)
• JAVA (J2EE) with
Spring
Framework -
Mysql + Hibernate
• text data entry
• upload images for
courses
• collaborative
transcriptions
• discussion blogs/
forums
• Mediceo del
Principato data
entry
Discussion Blogs and Fora

22. Collaborative Transcriptions

23. (V)
MIA
(2015-2019)
J2EE with Spring Framework with AngularJS

24. The ‘Medici Archive’ (after 1780s) at the
Archivio di Stato di Firenze
I) Mediceo avanti il Principato
II) Mediceo del Principato
III) Miscellanea Medicea
Scrittoio delle Possessioni
Guardaroba Medicea
[Carteggio degli Artisti: in part]
John Rylands Library at University of
Manchester
University of Pennsylvania’s Rare Book &
Manuscript Library
Harvard Business School’s Baker Library

25. • Mediceo avanti il Principato: (1370s-1537, ca. 165 volumes).
• Mediceo del Principato: (ca. 6500 volumes);
• the Miscellanea Medicea: comprising letters, dispatches, contracts, wills,
inventories, horoscopes, maps, etc. that were once an integral part of
the Mediceo del Principato but were removed in the 1780s (1500-1743, ca.
800 volumes);
• the Guardaroba Medicea: the documentary material, mostly inventories
and account books, recording Medici commission, labor cost, accession,
and circulation of raw materials, works of art, and manufactured luxury
objects (1532-1743, ca. 1700 volumes);
• the Scrittoio delle Regie Possessioni: the administrative and financial
documents—mostly payment records, inventories, and ground plans—
related to Medici villas, houses, farms, palaces, parks, and the Jewish
Ghetto (1530s-1743, ca. 4500 volumes).

26. MIA—ARCHIVAL RECONSTRUCTION
I) Mediceo del Principato (1532/7 – 1743) and
Miscellanea Medicea (1532/7 - 1743)
[Epistolary documents with its original attachments comprising all
documentary typologies]

27. MIA—ARCHIVAL RECONSTRUCTION
II) Letter and Avviso
[Avvisi arrived with letters but were filed in separate filze by the Medici
Secretariat]

28. MIA—HISTORICAL CONTINUITY
III) Reunite Mediceo avanti il Principato (1370s -1532/7) with the
Mediceo del Principato (1532/7 – 1743)
[Archive of the 1370s-1532 Medici with the Grand Ducal Archive]

29. MIA—THEMATIC ORGANIZATION
III) Link the Mediceo del Principato (1532/7 – 1743) with the
Guardaroba Medicea (15th Century - 1743) and Scrittoio delle Regie
Possessioni (1532/7 – 1743)
[Epistolary documents with (a) the documentary material, mostly inventories and
accounting books, recording the commission, labor cost, accession, and circulation of
raw materials and manufactured luxury objects housed in grand ducal residences and
(b) the administrative and financial documents related to Medici real estate]
“The Private Library of Cosimo I de’ Medici”

30. Creation of specific templates for each early modern documentary typology
1) Correspondence: Letter, Minute, Registro, Instruction, Summary, Relazione,
Report Card, Biglietto, Dispatch, Parere, Memoriale, Petition;
2) Notarial Records:Will, Certified Statement, Power of Attorney (Procura),
Contract, Condotta/Commission, Proof of Nobility, Certificate, Rogito;
3) Official Records: Authorization, Permit, Autopsy Report, Bando,
Dispensation, Exemption, Leave, Discharge, Lasciapassare, Passport,
Receipt, Notification, Certificate, Legitimization, Motuproprio, Divestiture,
Expropriation, Patent, Patent of Nobility, Sentence, Proceedings, Law,
Decree, Ordinance, Statute, Papal Bull, Papal Brief;
4) Inventories: Inventory, Registro Battesimale, Ruolo, Ricordanza, Ricordo,
Libro dei Morti
5) Fiscal Records: Campione, Portata, Arroto, Aumento;
6) Financial Records: Libro di Entrata e di Uscita (Crediti e Debiti),
Ricevuta, Polizza, Saldo;
7) Literary Works: Poem, Narrative, Biography, History, Panegyric, Pasquinata,
Treatise,Travelogue, Diary, Journal;
8) News: Avviso, Gazzetta, Coranto, Geschriebene Zeitungen, Nouvelles à la
Main;
9) Miscellanea: Recipe, Horoscope, Family Tree, Cifrario,Titolario/Formulario,
Sketches, Plans, Maps, Medical prognosis/diagnosis.

31. Registri borrowed by
Benedetto Varchi from
the SegreteriaVecchia
Horoscope
Bestemmia “Pizzino”

32. Archives as sites of rampant
digitization
Construction of personal digital
archives
No program that was geared to
early modern document typologies

33. MIA MODULES
Upload Module
Personal Archive Module
Document Module
Transcription Module
IIIF Module
Administration Module
Messaging Module
Advanced Search Module
Biographical Module
Geographical/Topographical Module
Collation Module
Case Study Module
Annotation Module
Commenting Module
Newsfeed Module
Teaching Module
Publication Module

34. MIA - Upload Module

35. Selection archival
typology
Dedicated
entry page with
specific entry
fields pertinent
to documentary
typology
Qualifying document with Advance Metadata

36. Completed/qualified document that can be enriched with more
metadata (e.g. topics, geographical/topographical tags, transcriptions, etc)

37. Reconstruction/Collation Module
Reconstruction of Medici Archive
Attachments reunited with
primary original document
Removed folios restored in
original location

38. Case Study Module
Organize cluster of documents from different
Medici collections under one thematic aegis;
Collaborative projects with two or more users

39. Annotation Module
Any aspect can be
glossed or annotated for
discussion in for a or
blogs

40. • Community sourcing;
• Sharing circa 15 million early modern documents
• Creation of a digital communities
• Collaboration on transcriptions/critical edition of text
• Teaching paleography and archival studies

41. Publication Module

42. (IV)
GHETTO MAPPING
PROJECT
(2017)
• AutoCAD 2013
• Rhinoceros 5
• Cinema4d
• Maxwell render
• Photoshop