Anne Leader
Anne Leader is Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at UVA. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art and Archaeology, with a specialization in Italian Renaissance Art, from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in 2000. She was Rush H. Kress Fellow at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence from 2008 to 2009. She has held teaching positions at the University of New Hampshire, Kean University, The City College of New York, and the Savannah College of Art and Design (Atlanta).
Her research and publications explore a range of topics in Italian Renaissance art, architecture, urbanism, and religious tradition, including: Michelangelo’s final project for the Sistine chapel, Benedictine monasticism and artistic patronage, Renaissance workshop practices and artistic authorship, and, most recently, burial practices and tomb monuments including articles on the tomb of Leonardo da Vinci's father. She is especially interested in sacred art and architecture, specifically in how images and buildings were used by individuals and institutions for devotional practice, doctrinal instruction, and propaganda.
She has published articles and reviews in The Burlington Magazine, caa.reviews, Human Evolution, The Journal for the Society of Architectural Historians, The Renaissance Quarterly, Renaissance Studies, Speculum, Studies in Iconography, and the Visual Resources Association Bulletin. Her monograph was published by Indiana University Press in 2012. MQUP and MIP published her edited volumes in 2018. She inaugurated the Italian Art Society's IASblog in 2013 and served as editor until 2016. As an IATH Visiting Fellow, she is preparing her database of Florentine tombs (ca. 1250-1650) for publication online as an interactive website (http://sepoltuario.iath.virginia.edu/).
Phone: +1-917-515-8469
Address: Auburn, AL, USA
Her research and publications explore a range of topics in Italian Renaissance art, architecture, urbanism, and religious tradition, including: Michelangelo’s final project for the Sistine chapel, Benedictine monasticism and artistic patronage, Renaissance workshop practices and artistic authorship, and, most recently, burial practices and tomb monuments including articles on the tomb of Leonardo da Vinci's father. She is especially interested in sacred art and architecture, specifically in how images and buildings were used by individuals and institutions for devotional practice, doctrinal instruction, and propaganda.
She has published articles and reviews in The Burlington Magazine, caa.reviews, Human Evolution, The Journal for the Society of Architectural Historians, The Renaissance Quarterly, Renaissance Studies, Speculum, Studies in Iconography, and the Visual Resources Association Bulletin. Her monograph was published by Indiana University Press in 2012. MQUP and MIP published her edited volumes in 2018. She inaugurated the Italian Art Society's IASblog in 2013 and served as editor until 2016. As an IATH Visiting Fellow, she is preparing her database of Florentine tombs (ca. 1250-1650) for publication online as an interactive website (http://sepoltuario.iath.virginia.edu/).
Phone: +1-917-515-8469
Address: Auburn, AL, USA
less
InterestsView All (52)
Uploads
Videos by Anne Leader
Books by Anne Leader
The subject of society’s response to death through commemoration has long fascinated scholars from many disciplines. Art historical studies of tombs and other commemorative monuments have concentrated on style and the development of various monument types. Early taxonomic investigations have inspired more detailed analyses of particular locales (especially England), artists, patrons, or extraordinary monuments that typically belonged to royals or clerics. Broader studies of funerary customs have been archaeological or anthropological in focus, discerning demographic trends and their intersections with commemorative practices. Memorializing the Middle Classes brings these approaches together while foregrounding the importance of placing monuments in their urban and socio-economic contexts to explore how memorials contributed to both individual and corporate identities. As art historians, the authors are indeed interested in the appearance and creation of the monuments under review, but they approach their visual material with a keen awareness of social and economic history. Commemorative markers not only reflected but also shaped social and religious practices. The book adds to the field of patronage studies, as it examines the motivations and aspirations of those who commissioned memorials. Its essays also demonstrate the benefits reaped by the institutions that housed memorials and the artists who created them.
Rejecting the autocratic rule imposed by his nephew, Lorenzo (Duke of Urbino), and brother, Giovanni (Pope Leo X), Giuliano advocated restraint and retention of republican traditions, believing his family should be “first among equals” and not more. As a result, the family and those closest to them wrote him out of the political scene, and historians - relying too heavily upon the accounts of supporters of Cardinal Giovanni and the Medici regime - followed suit. Interpreting works of art, books, and letters as testimony, Jungic constructs a new narrative to demonstrate that Giuliano was loved and admired by some of the most talented and famous men of his day, including Cesare Borgia, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Niccolò Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael.
More than a political biography, this volume offers a refreshing look at a man who was a significant patron and ally of intellectuals, artists, and religious reformers, revealing Giuliano to be at the heart of the period’s most significant cultural accomplishments.
The Florentine Badia: Art and Observance in a Renaissance Monastery examines the monastery during this crucial period of reform and rebirth. Interdisciplinary in approach, it explores the renovated Badia as an integral part of the spiritual, political, and social life of Early Renaissance Florence, as crucial to the broader program to disseminate the Benedictine Observance throughout Italy, and as fundamental to refashioning Benedictine corporate identity. The Florentine Badia is significant not only for its role in Florence’s civic life and urban development, but also because its cloister survives as the earliest monastic commission to display the new architectural language of Brunelleschi and the revolutionary artistic vocabulary of Masaccio and Fra Angelico. By interweaving discussion of Renaissance art, architecture, monasticism, patronage, and Florentine social and political history, it provides a greater understanding of this fascinating monument and expands our knowledge of religious life, artistic patronage, and workshop practice in Early Renaissance Italy.
A review of the literature demonstrates how previous studies of the Orange Cloister focus on issues of authorship, as historians have discussed either the cloister’s construction and responsible architect or its mural program and painter. This dissertation examines the entire complex, remedying the artificial division between architectural and art history. Analyzing the extant building fabric, documentary evidence -- much published here for the first time, and other primary sources, this study aims to reconstruct the cloister’s fifteenth-century appearance and function. A discussion of the patron, Abbot Gomezio di Giovanni, explains how the cloister complex formed an integral part of his reform program initiated at the monastery in 1419. Issues of architectural authorship are also addressed to question the validity of historians’ attempts to identify the cloister’s “architect.” Similarly, art historians have struggled with the authorship of the cloister’s murals. A review of documentary, circumstantial, and stylistic evidence suggests that the Life of St. Benedict cycle was produced by two teams of artists, who included the documented, much-debated, and poorly understood Portuguese painter Giovanni di Consalvo. Stylistic and iconographic analysis clarifies the relationship between the Badia cycle and its textual and pictorial sources to show how the murals served Gomezio’s institutional reforms by expressing themes crucial to the abbot and his monastic community.
Projects by Anne Leader
Fully searchable online database where users can search by monument, materials, decorative elements, location, family or individual, institution, occupation, neighborhood, social status, and other categories.
http://sepoltuario.iath.virginia.edu
Articles by Anne Leader
whose origins have fascinated scholars for well over a century, installed a tomb for himself and his descendants in the
Florentine monastery known today as the Badia Fiorentina.
Leonardo’s complex family included four stepmothers and
twenty-three half brothers and half sisters and their offspring,
many of whom were buried at the Badia. This article traces the
history of the Da Vinci tomb from its first burial in 1474 to
its last in 1614 to recount which family members were buried
therein and when. Since the church was radically renovated in
the mid-seventeenth century, this paper also provides evidence
for where the tomb chamber was originally located and where
its remnants might be found through archeological excavation.
Chapters and Catalogue Entries by Anne Leader
Unfortunately, the entry includes an error in the life dates provided for Dei, who was born in 1702/3 and died in 1789, not 1759 as published in the catalogue, a date based on what is likely a typographical error in Giovambatista Ristori, “Brevi cenni biografici di antichi soci Colombari.” Atti della Società Colombaria di Firenze dall’anno MCMX all’anno MCMXX. Florence: L’ Arte della Stampa, 1921, vol. 7, p. 178. For date of 1789 see Sandra Marsini. “Fondo Manoscritti. Inventario analitico.” N/187, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, 1989; and D. Savini D. and S. Taglialagamba, La Filza Dei: Giovanni Battista e i suoi documenti inediti su Leonardo da Vinci: Achademia Leonardi Vinci, 2022, anno II, n. 2, 53-87.
The exhibition reunites for the first time Fra Angelico’s four reliquaries for Santa Maria Novella (1424-34; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Museo di San Marco, Florence). Together they cover key episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary and capture in miniature some of his most important compositional innovations. Assembled at the Gardner with exceptional examples of Angelico’s narrative paintings from collections in Europe and the United States, this exhibition explores his celebrated talents as a storyteller and the artistic contributions that shaped a new ideal of painting in Florence.
The subject of society’s response to death through commemoration has long fascinated scholars from many disciplines. Art historical studies of tombs and other commemorative monuments have concentrated on style and the development of various monument types. Early taxonomic investigations have inspired more detailed analyses of particular locales (especially England), artists, patrons, or extraordinary monuments that typically belonged to royals or clerics. Broader studies of funerary customs have been archaeological or anthropological in focus, discerning demographic trends and their intersections with commemorative practices. Memorializing the Middle Classes brings these approaches together while foregrounding the importance of placing monuments in their urban and socio-economic contexts to explore how memorials contributed to both individual and corporate identities. As art historians, the authors are indeed interested in the appearance and creation of the monuments under review, but they approach their visual material with a keen awareness of social and economic history. Commemorative markers not only reflected but also shaped social and religious practices. The book adds to the field of patronage studies, as it examines the motivations and aspirations of those who commissioned memorials. Its essays also demonstrate the benefits reaped by the institutions that housed memorials and the artists who created them.
Rejecting the autocratic rule imposed by his nephew, Lorenzo (Duke of Urbino), and brother, Giovanni (Pope Leo X), Giuliano advocated restraint and retention of republican traditions, believing his family should be “first among equals” and not more. As a result, the family and those closest to them wrote him out of the political scene, and historians - relying too heavily upon the accounts of supporters of Cardinal Giovanni and the Medici regime - followed suit. Interpreting works of art, books, and letters as testimony, Jungic constructs a new narrative to demonstrate that Giuliano was loved and admired by some of the most talented and famous men of his day, including Cesare Borgia, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Niccolò Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael.
More than a political biography, this volume offers a refreshing look at a man who was a significant patron and ally of intellectuals, artists, and religious reformers, revealing Giuliano to be at the heart of the period’s most significant cultural accomplishments.
The Florentine Badia: Art and Observance in a Renaissance Monastery examines the monastery during this crucial period of reform and rebirth. Interdisciplinary in approach, it explores the renovated Badia as an integral part of the spiritual, political, and social life of Early Renaissance Florence, as crucial to the broader program to disseminate the Benedictine Observance throughout Italy, and as fundamental to refashioning Benedictine corporate identity. The Florentine Badia is significant not only for its role in Florence’s civic life and urban development, but also because its cloister survives as the earliest monastic commission to display the new architectural language of Brunelleschi and the revolutionary artistic vocabulary of Masaccio and Fra Angelico. By interweaving discussion of Renaissance art, architecture, monasticism, patronage, and Florentine social and political history, it provides a greater understanding of this fascinating monument and expands our knowledge of religious life, artistic patronage, and workshop practice in Early Renaissance Italy.
A review of the literature demonstrates how previous studies of the Orange Cloister focus on issues of authorship, as historians have discussed either the cloister’s construction and responsible architect or its mural program and painter. This dissertation examines the entire complex, remedying the artificial division between architectural and art history. Analyzing the extant building fabric, documentary evidence -- much published here for the first time, and other primary sources, this study aims to reconstruct the cloister’s fifteenth-century appearance and function. A discussion of the patron, Abbot Gomezio di Giovanni, explains how the cloister complex formed an integral part of his reform program initiated at the monastery in 1419. Issues of architectural authorship are also addressed to question the validity of historians’ attempts to identify the cloister’s “architect.” Similarly, art historians have struggled with the authorship of the cloister’s murals. A review of documentary, circumstantial, and stylistic evidence suggests that the Life of St. Benedict cycle was produced by two teams of artists, who included the documented, much-debated, and poorly understood Portuguese painter Giovanni di Consalvo. Stylistic and iconographic analysis clarifies the relationship between the Badia cycle and its textual and pictorial sources to show how the murals served Gomezio’s institutional reforms by expressing themes crucial to the abbot and his monastic community.
Fully searchable online database where users can search by monument, materials, decorative elements, location, family or individual, institution, occupation, neighborhood, social status, and other categories.
http://sepoltuario.iath.virginia.edu
whose origins have fascinated scholars for well over a century, installed a tomb for himself and his descendants in the
Florentine monastery known today as the Badia Fiorentina.
Leonardo’s complex family included four stepmothers and
twenty-three half brothers and half sisters and their offspring,
many of whom were buried at the Badia. This article traces the
history of the Da Vinci tomb from its first burial in 1474 to
its last in 1614 to recount which family members were buried
therein and when. Since the church was radically renovated in
the mid-seventeenth century, this paper also provides evidence
for where the tomb chamber was originally located and where
its remnants might be found through archeological excavation.
Unfortunately, the entry includes an error in the life dates provided for Dei, who was born in 1702/3 and died in 1789, not 1759 as published in the catalogue, a date based on what is likely a typographical error in Giovambatista Ristori, “Brevi cenni biografici di antichi soci Colombari.” Atti della Società Colombaria di Firenze dall’anno MCMX all’anno MCMXX. Florence: L’ Arte della Stampa, 1921, vol. 7, p. 178. For date of 1789 see Sandra Marsini. “Fondo Manoscritti. Inventario analitico.” N/187, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, 1989; and D. Savini D. and S. Taglialagamba, La Filza Dei: Giovanni Battista e i suoi documenti inediti su Leonardo da Vinci: Achademia Leonardi Vinci, 2022, anno II, n. 2, 53-87.
The exhibition reunites for the first time Fra Angelico’s four reliquaries for Santa Maria Novella (1424-34; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Museo di San Marco, Florence). Together they cover key episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary and capture in miniature some of his most important compositional innovations. Assembled at the Gardner with exceptional examples of Angelico’s narrative paintings from collections in Europe and the United States, this exhibition explores his celebrated talents as a storyteller and the artistic contributions that shaped a new ideal of painting in Florence.
The exhibition reunites for the first time Fra Angelico’s four reliquaries for Santa Maria Novella (1424-34; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Museo di San Marco, Florence). Together they cover key episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary and capture in miniature some of his most important compositional innovations. Assembled at the Gardner with exceptional examples of Angelico’s narrative paintings from collections in Europe and the United States, this exhibition explores his celebrated talents as a storyteller and the artistic contributions that shaped a new ideal of painting in Florence.
The exhibition reunites for the first time Fra Angelico’s four reliquaries for Santa Maria Novella (1424-34; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Museo di San Marco, Florence). Together they cover key episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary and capture in miniature some of his most important compositional innovations. Assembled at the Gardner with exceptional examples of Angelico’s narrative paintings from collections in Europe and the United States, this exhibition explores his celebrated talents as a storyteller and the artistic contributions that shaped a new ideal of painting in Florence.
Italy in the thirteenth century was transformed by two new religious orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. They created a tremendous demand for works of all kinds – painted altarpieces, crucifixes, fresco cycles, illuminated choir books, and liturgical objects – to decorate their churches. The visual narratives they favoured are notable for their naturalistic treatment and the emphasis on expressive gestures to show human emotions, both of which were significant new developments in Italian art. This book is the first major study to examine the art of these rival religious orders together, exploring the ways in which they used art as propaganda to promote the charisma of their saints and to articulate their revolutionary concept of religious vocation.
The first exhibition dedicated to Italian Renaissance art in Nashville since 1934, Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy explores the role of the two major new religious orders in the revival of the arts in Italy during the period 1200 to 1550. The exhibition presents drawings, illuminated manuscripts, liturgical objects, paintings, prints, printed books and sculptures drawn from the collections of major American and European libraries and museums, including works of art from the Vatican Library and Vatican Museums that have never before been exhibited in the United States. Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. A fully illustrated catalogue published by Philip Wilson Publishers in conjunction with the Frist Center will accompany the exhibition.
Italy in the thirteenth century was transformed by two new religious orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. They created a tremendous demand for works of all kinds – painted altarpieces, crucifixes, fresco cycles, illuminated choir books, and liturgical objects – to decorate their churches. The visual narratives they favoured are notable for their naturalistic treatment and the emphasis on expressive gestures to show human emotions, both of which were significant new developments in Italian art. This book is the first major study to examine the art of these rival religious orders together, exploring the ways in which they used art as propaganda to promote the charisma of their saints and to articulate their revolutionary concept of religious vocation.
The first exhibition dedicated to Italian Renaissance art in Nashville since 1934, Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy explores the role of the two major new religious orders in the revival of the arts in Italy during the period 1200 to 1550. The exhibition presents drawings, illuminated manuscripts, liturgical objects, paintings, prints, printed books and sculptures drawn from the collections of major American and European libraries and museums, including works of art from the Vatican Library and Vatican Museums that have never before been exhibited in the United States. Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. A fully illustrated catalogue published by Philip Wilson Publishers in conjunction with the Frist Center will accompany the exhibition.
book’s subtitle more aptly captures its subject: a history of the spaces, places, and
lived experience of monetary exchange in late medieval and early modern Italy.
Lauren Jacobi explores the “topography of money” (164) primarily through the example
of Florence, but also cities including Milan, Rome, and Venice, and smaller centers like
Gubbio, Lucca, and Perugia. Jacobi also looks at international economic landscapes
through Italian branch banks in England and Flanders. Her subject presents challenges
because most banking architecture was initially built for other functions, many buildings
used by bankers were multipurpose, and little survives of the structures as they
appeared in the Renaissance. The term architecture is defined broadly, and workshops,
mints, guild halls, loggias, streets and squares, mansions, monti di pietà (charitable lending institutions), and even ships are analyzed as sites of commercial exchange, fortune building, and money lending. Jacobi examines a range of evidence through the lens of financial activity to conclude that the spaces of banking were recognizable not by any particular architectural style or typological form but rather through the relationships of bankers, monetary activities, and the spaces they inhabited. These banking networks
enabled moneymaking—both the literal minting of coin and the figurative creation
of wealth—to be seen as honest and connected to good government.
"
Presented in “Health, medicine, and socio-cultural aspects in the Late Middle Ages and through the Renaissance: new research perspectives.” FAPAB (Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology and Bioarchaeology) Research Center, Avola, Italy (virtual). 16-17 September 2021. See YouTube video at 2:16-2:53. Corrections included in draft, forthcoming in Acta Palaeomedica-International Journal of Paleomedicine 3 (Feb/Mar 2022)
For more on the history of Digital Sepoltuario, please visit: http://ocm.auburn.edu/newsroom/campus_notices/2021/06/220845-olli-neh-award.php.
For the full list of award winners, see: https://www.neh.gov/news/neh-announces-24-million-225-humanities-projects-nationwide