Edward Goldberg

Independent Scholar

"L'ebreo": a newly discovered play by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger

2014-2015: Spring

For nearly forty years, I have been working in Italian—primarily Florentine—archives, investigating Medici art patronage and collecting, cultural relations between Tuscany and Spain, and (most recently) Florentine Jewish history. My publications include various articles and four books: "Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage" (Princeton, 1983), "After Vasari: History, Art and Patronage in Late Medici Florence" (Princeton, 1988), "Jews and Magic in Medici Florence: The Secret World of Benedetto Blanis" (Toronto, 2011) and "A Jew at the Medici Court: The Letters of Benedetto Blanis Hebreo, 1615-1621". 

An art historian by training, I completed a Ph.D. at Oxford University, taught in the Fine Arts Department at Harvard University and founded the Medici Archive Project in Florence, which I directed for many years. My latest project focuses on Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger's newly discovered five-act comedy, "L'Ebreo / The Jew" (1613)—which I will be developing at the Italian Academy as both a scholarly publication and a performance piece.
http://www.secretplacesitaly.net