KHI POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP II
Polar Cartographies and Material Cultural Exchanges. The Recognition of Native Arctic Cultures at the Medici Court
Post-doctoral fellowship at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max Planck Institute.
In the heart of Renaissance Florence, the icy landscapes of the Arctic took shape in the maps of the ‘Polar Lands’ in the Guardaroba or Sala delle Carte Geografiche of Palazzo Vecchio. These maps, testimony to Cosimo I's fascination with Nordic curiosities, were inspired by Mercator's cartography and forgotten medieval accounts such as the Inventio Fortunata. They mapped not only geography, but also cultural crossovers as Indigenous knowledge intertwined with European ambition. And it is not coincidental that the very specific longitudes of the four ocean rivers mapped in the ‘Polar Lands’ were north of four areas of great salience to Indigenous Peoples of the pan-boreal arc. The ‘Polar Lands’ are the earliest testimony to Arctic cartography and the recognition of Native Arctic cultures at the Medici court and relate to the material and visual culture of the Early Modern boreal worlds that flourished before colonialism expansion. The maps illustrate the migration from the south to the north, where explorers ventured into Arctic climates recognising that these Native cultures were far more complex than was perceived in medieval times.
Centuries after the depiction of the ‘Polar Lands’, the Florentine Museum of Anthropology would harbour a rich Indigenous material culture from these depicted Arctic regions. Arctic skin garments designed for northern climates echo the ingenuity of Northern Peoples and their rich relationships with nature. These artefacts narrate the circulation of objects during the Early Modern period as trade goods, curiosities and diplomatic gifts from distant worlds. In these collections, the Arctic and Florence remain intertwined, in a dialogue between cartography, material culture, and a pre-colonial Arctic, now subject to climate pressure, globalisation and resource exploitation.
https://www.khi.fi.it/en/institut/mitarbeiter/palomino-elisa.php