Made of Feathers: Material and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Atlantic World

Lecture by Alessandra Baroni Vannucci
Visiting Professor of Italian

Feathers were the symbol used by Europeans to distinguish lands inhabited by indigenous peoples in the earliest maps of the New World (printed from the first half of 16th century onward). Feathers  were also the most traditional pre-Columbian material to survive after colonization and were used to make works of art such as pictures, cloths, religious objects, and ornaments that were appreciated by European art collectors for centuries to come. This talk will offer an original perspective on the role of feathers in the cultural and material exchanges between Europe and the New World in the 16th-18th centuries.

Lunch will be provided.