The Renaissance saw the emergence of the ideal of the uomo universale, the notion that man should educate himself in as many fields as possible in order to fully develop the potential inherent in him. This educationally and epistemologically optimistic concept also applied to artists, whose status gradually began to change during the Renaissance, from craftsman to creator, from representative of the artes mechanicae to connoisseur of the artes liberales. The usual training in the seven liberal arts during the Renaissance included the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, astronomy, geometry). In keeping with this broad canon of subjects, the Renaissance Section takes an explicitly interdisciplinary approach to Renaissance studies and is open to publications from all disciplines. It is intended as a publishing vehicle to promote Renaissance studies at universities and non-university research institutions.

Scholarly essays on individual issues (including methodological or cross-disciplinary ones) and complete conference proceedings may be submitted, but essayistic articles, reviews, and conference proceedings are also welcome.

Contact: renaissance@kunsttexte.de

Editors

Angela Dressen
Angela Dressen is Privatdozentin (faculty member) at the University of Dresden, and Andrew W. Mellon Librarian at I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. She has been a guest lecturer and visiting professor at Vienna (2018-2020) and a substitution professor at the University of Jena (2021-22). Her three monographs are dedicated to different aspects around Italian Renaissance studies: “Pavimenti decorati del Quattrocento in Italia” (Venice 2008), “The Library of the Badia Fiesolana: Intellectual History and Education under the Medici (1462-1494)” (Florence 2013), “The Intellectual Education of the Italian Renaissance Artist” (New York 2021). At the Renaissance Society of America she holds the position of Discipline Representative for Digital Humanities (2015-2022).

Susanne Gramatzki
After teaching at the Universities of Wuppertal, Tübingen, Dresden and Berlin (Humboldt University) and working on several DFG projects, Susanne Gramatzki has been a lecturer in French and Italian Literature at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen since April 2019. She is the author of a monograph on the poetry of Michelangelo Buonarroti and co-editor of the book series Mittelalter und Renaissance in der Romania. Her research interests include Italian Renaissance art and literature, the relations between text and image resp. literature and visual art, book aesthetics/artist’s books, literature and philosophy, 18th- and 19th-century French literature, the staging of authorship, and gender-specific issues.

Nils Weber
Nils Weber is Max Planck PreDoc Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut and PhD candidate at the University of Heidelberg. His current research delves into the repercussions of pandemics, examining the lasting social, political, and cultural heritage implications of health crises on early modern visual cultures. A second focus lies on the pictorial tradition of the Venetian Republic, and the aesthetic practices that emerged from the unique topographical conditions of the Lagoon City.
From 2021 to 2023 he was Stipendiat at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut with a long-term scholarship offered by the Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg (Landesgraduiertenförderung).
Nils received his B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in Art History from the University of Heidelberg, while also studying Philosophy at the University of Rome II - Tor Vergata. He held several fellowships, internships, and academic positions for the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the European Liberal Arts Network, the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, and as a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg, where he taught seminars about the methodologies of Art History.