Researching Florentine Workshop Practice

In the early 1300s, Florence experienced a period of unprecedented creativity, prosperity, urban expansion, and intellectual innovation—emerging as a leading center of artistic culture. Researching Florentine Workshop Practice sought to better understand the practices of 14th-century Florentine artist workshops and how the materials chosen by artists working in both panel painting and manuscript illumination impact the present-day appearance, stability, and conservation of these works.

• Several color fields of the Chiarito Tabernacle were digitally revitalized in order to provide an informed visualization of the object's original appearance.
• The technical portion of the study of Pacino di Bonaguida’s paintings was featured in the exhibitions Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350 (Getty Center) and Revealing the Early Renaissance: Stories and Secrets in Early Florentine Art at the (Art Gallery of Ontario).

Perhaps the best example of Florence’s emergence as a leading center of artistic culture during the early 1300s is the work of Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1267–1337), whose remarkable frescoes and panel paintings inspired the creation of the “Florentine school” of followers. In an effort to expand the knowledge of painting during this period, this project brought together art historians, conservators, curators, and scientists to explore the broader community of panel painters and manuscript illuminators of early Trecento Florence.

The J. Paul Getty Museum; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Queens' College, Cambridge; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Morgan Library & Museum, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Free Library of Philadelphia; Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell'Arte Roberto Longhi, Florence; Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence; Museo e Chiostri Monumentali di Santa Maria Novella, Florence; Archivio Storico Civico e Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan; Rochester Institute of Technology—Munsell Color Science Laboratory