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The monastery of the Badia Fiesolana on the outskirts of Florence has often been seen as a secondary project of the Medici. However new research has shown that the family´s involvement in its financial, cultural, intellectual, religious and artistic affairs is central to its development under Cosimo and Lorenzo de´Medici during the 15th century. In the remarkable setting of the Badia, where art and architectural structure was studied anew, erudite abbots encountered learned humanists. The proceedings of a conference held in 2013 shed new light on cultural and scholarly life in and around Florence.

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Angela Dressen is Andrew W. Mellon Librarian at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.

Klaus Pietschmann is Professor for Musicology at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

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