'Authenticity', 'Style' and 'Originality' - The Miniatures, Drawings and Signs of Notaries on and in Court Books of the 14th and 15th Century in the State Archives of Florence - the fund 'Giudice degli appelli e nullità' (1338-1491)

• Applicant: Dr. Ruth Wolff
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 539635296

The project is concerned with an extensive corpus of miniatures, drawings and signs of outstanding importance for Cultural and Art Studies that has not yet been investigated. The miniatures, drawings and signs are found on the covers of parchment and inside court books of the 14th to th 15th centuries preserved in the State Archives of Florence and were largely created by the same notaries who wrote the texts of the court books. The project focuses on the books of the fund “"Giudice degli appelli e nullità" from 1338 to 1491 (approx. 1,400 books), which are distinguished by their diversity, quality and rarity. The fund will be studied in its entirety and compared with selected examples of the other Collections of court books in the Florentine State Archives. The book covers of the fund will be made accessible in a scientific image database on the website of the Florentine State Archives. The project's guiding questions will focus on the "authenticity", the "style" and the "originality" of notarial drawing and painting, in order to grasp their specific artistic forms, principles and meaning. The project thus aims to open up an important area of drawing and painting practice that has been overlooked by art studies but was omnipresent in medieval and early modern Italy, while at the same time providing new approaches and methods for its study. Through the reconstruction of contemporary concepts and notions of notarial and at the same time artistic drawing, the project aims to make a substantial contribution to the knowledge of the history of art, of art studies and of connoisseurship.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants