MODERN AGE, CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

The Fortune of the Casa di San Giorgio and the Origins of the Corporations

Dr. Carlo Taviani (project in collaboration with Villa I Tatti, University of Harvard)

Corporations are currently among the strongest and most influential organizations in the world. One important turning point in the development of their capacities took place in the early modern period when they successfully acquired huge amounts of capital in order to better afford the exorbitant costs and risks of travel from Europe to Africa, Asia and America. During this period they also assumed political tasks, progressively ruling lands and  ...   


CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

The Restitution of Looted Cultural Property in Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria, 1945–1998

Dr. Bianca Gaudenzi

The restitution of looted cultural heritage is one of the most widely debated topics of the year. Countless bottles of ink have been spent over what has emphatically been described as the "biggest art theft in history", and new provenance works now appear on a monthly basis. Yet very few studies have so far endeavoured to historicise such emotionally-charged subject within the bigger framework of postwar European history. This project  ...