FISHSKINLAB - DIS-ROBING THE GUARDAROBA

DIS-ROBING THE GUARDAROBA

The Guardaroba, or Sale delle Carte Geografiche, in Palazzo Vecchio, is where Cosimo I de’ Medici commissioned maps of the known world on cabinet doors opening onto Wunderkammern containing artefacts from those regions. There are four Arctic maps. The four “Polar Lands” maps depict areas inhabited by Indigenous cultures prior to Arctic exploration. They constitute the earliest evidence of Arctic cartography and of the Medici court’s recognition of Boreal worlds that existed before European colonial expansion.

The Museo di Antropologia e Etnologia in Florence traces the movement of Arctic animal skin artefacts from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia to Florence. Although these objects arrived after the completion of the Guardaroba project, they could plausibly have been displayed behind the doors of the “Polar Lands”.

The chapter ‘Dis-robing the Guardaroba: The Arctic as viewed from Florence’ draws on early modern cartography, Arctic exploration, pre-modern race and Indigenous studies, anthropology, and material culture. It examines the myth of the North Pole, geographical representations produced prior to formal exploration.

The publication unfolded after the conference Reading the Book of Nature Across Sciences, History and Philosophy, which took place in 2023 at the Museo Galileo – Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence.

With many thanks to Davide Pietrini for his editorial work; to William Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, and Igor Krupnik at the Smithsonian Institution Arctic Studies Center; to Prof. Monica Zavattaro and Prof. Gloria Roselli at the Museo di Antropologia e Etnologia in Florence; and to Dr Imre Josef Demhardt for introducing us to this subject.

Please find the publication here: https://digital.dilef.it/catalogo/reading-the-book-of-nature-across-sciences-history-and-philosophy/345