Pforzheimer Fellowships in the Harvard Library Project Proposal Form Name of library/archives: Special Collections, Baker Library
School/Unit: Harvard Business School
Location/address: Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02163
Project sponsor/library or unit director: Debra Wallace
Project supervisor(s): Laura Linard
Contact information for further information or questions: [email protected]; 617-495-6360
Brief background/description of library/archives: From its inception, Baker Library has collected rare and unique materials that focus on
the evolution of economic life, business and industry. Spanning eight centuries, the
collections include manuscripts, rare books, pamphlets, broadsides, photographs,
prints, advertising ephemera, and corporate reports. These rich and varied collections
support research in a remarkably diverse range of fields including social and cultural
history, ethnic and gender studies, industrial archaeology, sociology, fine and
decorative arts, maritime history and engineering.
Anticipated outcomes/final product: Baker Library plans to build a collaborative digital product for the Medici Family
Collection. This project is to conduct research and prepare a report on the current state
of digital humanities in Renaissance studies and identify the most effective digital
scholarship tools to study an extensive manuscript collection and build a research
community. This work is crucial to the development of the digital product in fall 2016.
Project description: (Please submit a separate form for each project proposed) Baker Library holds the largest collection of Renaissance account books outside of Italy
including the HBS Medici Collection, which comprises more than 150 ledgers and letter
books. This collection sheds extraordinary light on the business and personal activities
of six generations of one branch of Florence’s Medici family and contains an abundance
of unique materials from the late 14th to the early 18th century with the vast bulk from
the period of 1400 to 1600. These private account books and journals survive from a
(Project description continued from page 1:) a time period corresponding to Florence’s greatness as a center for both Renaissance
culture and early capitalism. While valued as incredible resources for the study of early
modern business and economic practices, the materials provide
new perspective on
international trade, on merchant activities along the main Silk Road to China,
intercultural and interreligious trade among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and much
more. Engaged in the silk trade, the Medici records provide insight
into the pivotal
Florentine cloth business which was central to Florence’s prosperity and its emergence
as a major city in Italy. Florence produced high quality cloth which was marketed
throughout the peninsula, in Europe, and in the East. The trade extended all the way
up to the Silk Road, to Bursa in modern-day Turkey. Goods were circulated in the
Byzantine and early Islamic Middle East along trade networks at the juncture of several
continents. The convergence of these routes created a unique setting for cultural
exchange reflected in the Medici Collection.
This incredible collection is little known both here at Harvard University and in the
broader scholarly community. Baker Library has recently begun a multi-year project to
make this archive accessible and known to Renaissance scholars. In December 2015,
FAS and Business School faculty co-sponsored a series of lectures and workshops
focused on the Medici Collection. http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/medici/ An extensive
collection guide was also created. In February, Baker will begin scanning volumes from
the collection with the intention of scanning the full collection in the next two years.
The Medici Family Collection offers the opportunity for international scholars from a
wide variety of disciplines to study and learn from each other. The archive is an
untapped resource but the question is how to present the material digitally to make the
archive as useful as possible. Research is needed to identify which digital tools would
be the most effective in revealing the vast data that is contained in the 150 volumes.
Baker Library would also like to create a site in which scholars actively engage with the
archive and in the process are building and sharing knowledge. The Pforzheimer
Summer Fellow would explore all the available literature on this subject, review relevant
web sites, and conduct interviews with scholars to develop recommendations and a
proposal for the structure of the Medici Family Collection digital product. If there is
available time, the Fellow would work with Special Collections staff to test identified
digital scholarship tools with the three volumes that are currently digitized.