GEMS is organising a talk by Dr. Jonathan Schiesaro on ‘Debating Private Censorship and Family Networks from Florence to Flanders: Lodovico Guicciardini’s Letters and the Publication of Francesco Guicciardini’s “Ricordi”’
Monday 26 May, 2025
5 PM
Camelot (Room 3.30, Blandijnberg 2) Hybrid format
This talk explores the epistolary and editorial activity of Lodovico Guicciardini (1521-1589) between the events surrounding the publication of the first edition of Francesco Guicciardini’s History of Italy (1561), edited by Lodovico’s cousin Agnolo di Girolamo (1525-1581), and the Antwerp edition of the Ricordi (1585). Through a close reading of his correspondence and early printed materials within the Flemish context, the talk examines how private censorship and family networks shaped the reception of Italian historical culture and political thought on the periphery of the Counter-Reformation.
Jonathan Schiesaro (PhD, University of Zurich) is a research fellow of the Irish Research Council at Trinity College Dublin, where he works on a project focused on the transmission and manipulation of documentary heritage within Florentine patrician families (including the Vasari, Bandinelli, Buonarroti, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Ammirato) under the early Grand Dukes of Tuscany. His main research interests include Renaissance art treatises, memory writing, and historiography. He published the monograph Baccio Bandinelli e le anatomie degli scartafacci: il “Libro del disegno”, l’archivio di famiglia e la questione del “Memoriale” (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023).
