Herbaria, i.e. collections of dried and pressed plants, have been central to the practice of botany, and hence a key discipline of the natural sciences, since the 16th century. Focussing on a set of herbaria compiled in the early 18th century (which form part of the HAB’s collections), this project is aimed at defining early modern […]

My project, “Making Conversation,” traces key moments in the discursive history of the concept and medium of the conversation both backwards to the Enlightenment, and forward to our present moment and imminent future, in particular the media shift from reading to listening (epitomized by the cultural currency of the podcast), and the advent of artificial […]

Heimkehr als Herausforderung. Das Leben deutschsprachiger Sklav:innen nach der Freilassung (1600–1800)In der Frühen Neuzeit gerieten mehrere zehntausend Menschen aus dem Alten Reich in osmanische bzw. maghrebinische Lösegeldsklaverei. Das Proj...

Boris Sokolov, professor of art history, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, is occupied with several topics in the history of garden art (his web site: www.gardenhistory.ru). He is preparing a critical Russian edition of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, most famous book of the Italian Renaissance published by Aldo Manuzio in Venice at 1499. The framework […]

Between the 1450s and the 1550s, the reception of the Classical Tradition played a fundamental role in the creation of a sense of community among humanists of both Italian and German origins. This cultural phenomenon was not only driven by a certain use and reinterpretation of the past, but also by a new understanding of […]

Beauty as a Regimen of the Mind. On the Dietetic Origins of Modern Aesthetics The aim of the present project is to investigate for the first time the birth of aesthetics as a branch of philosophy, as it was founded by the German Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762), in the light of the modern tradition of […]

Reformation Literary Criticism From the 1530s to the 1550s a school of literary thought coalesced around Philip Melanchthon and his circle at Wittenberg and radiated across northern Europe, stimulating doctrinal innovation and fresh literary experiment, and providing a vocabulary for the lived experience of political and confessional schism. By the 1570s, it had become the […]

My dissertation explores eighteenth-century bathing architecture in Eastern Europe and its impact across the continent. During this period, the region witnessed unprecedented developments in hygiene infrastructure, thanks to a network of artists active in Russia, Poland-Lithuania, and Habsburg Empire. Eastern European baths, whose forms and functions simultaneously evoked Ottoman and Graeco-Roman counterparts, reveal the ideological […]

My PhD project aims to comprehensively investigate the theories, mechanisms and practices of (medical) vigilance directed towards the convicts and slaves of the galleys in Livorno and Civitavecchia between the 16th and 18th centuries. In particular, it analyses and questions the role and tasks of a figure often neglected by historiography: the galley doctor, who […]

The significance of Anglo-German relations from the eighteenth century onwards, when the Hanoverian dynasty began their rule in Great Britain, is well documented. My project investigates the lesser known links between Britain and Germany in the preceding period, focusing on Wolfenbüttel as a surprising but key centre of early Anglo-German interactions. I explore these interactions […]