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NYU Florence

NYU Florence, a Gathering Place for Artists and Scholars, Welcomes Renowned Photographer Luca Campigotto

Posted on by Katie L
Luca, speaking in a microphone, and Alessandra seated in chairs in front of a projected image of a city with buildings and power lines

Luca Campigotto, left, and Alessandra Capodacqua, right, in conversation at the “Silence and Sound: Visual Echoes in Two Cities,” event

Last fall at NYU Florence, Luca Campigotto, a photographer known for his evocative images of urban landscapes, shared his photographic journey and artistic vision in a conversation with faculty member Alessandra Capodacqua. Students studying away in Florence filled the audience to listen and learn from the insightful discussion titled “Silence and Sound: Visual Echoes in Two Cities.”

Each semester students at NYU Florence are able to participate in a diverse array of events including talks by celebrated artists, scholars, musicians, and actors. Villa La Pietra, the historic villa home to NYU Florence’s campus, hosts countless conversations every semester that span disciplines and global perspectives.

Capodacqua, a photographer, educator, and exhibition curator who has taught at NYU Florence for 25 years, regularly organizes lectures with acclaimed photographers for her students to attend. Past campus talks have featured Abelardo Morell, Peter Bialobrzeski, Monika Bulaj, Martin Kollár, and Martina Bacigalupo, and many others. During the fall semester, Capodacqua curated a conference tailored to students enrolled in her course City Photography and Architecture. “The class explores the representation and analysis of urban environments,” she says. “I chose to feature the work of Luca Campigotto, who has spent decades examining the parallels between seemingly dissimilar cities united by water, such as Venice and New York.”

A landscape photographer and writer living in Milan and New York, Campigotto has exhibited his work at numerous museums and institutions worldwide. Early in his career, his photography was shaped by an attraction to wastelands and abandoned places, in contrast to the refined beauty of his hometown of Venice. Later, a project dedicated to photographing Venice at night in black and white reinvented Campigotto’s approach, inspiring him to photograph the city from a historical perspective.

Images from Campigotto's 2006 book, Venice Exposed

After moving to New York City in 1999, Campigotto found a new muse in the bustling atmosphere of the metropolis. Despite initially feeling like an outsider, he managed to bridge the gap between the two distinct urban landscapes of Venice and New York. “His images reflect his quest to capture the essence of New York City’s urban fabric and evoke the atmosphere of iconic films set there,” says Capodacqua. “These two cities—though worlds apart—share similarities in their enduring historical identities and architectural evolutions.”

Images from Campigotto's 2012 book Gotham City

“I have spent lots of time photographing these two cities,” Campigotto wrote in his 2018 book, Disoriente. “I have watched both with greedy and devoted eyes, trying to capture their irreducible visual essence, the moment when their physical appearance coincides with the inner imaginary side.”

In conversation at NYU Florence, Capodacqua and Campigotto discussed how his experience growing up in Venice shaped his vision of New York City and how both cities have transformed with time. “We discussed how his photographs capture the layered histories and evolution of these two iconic urban landscapes, drawing parallels between their historical depth and identifying common threads in their development,” says Capodacqua. They also covered the more technical aspects of Campigotto’s work, including his preference for night photography and his emphasis on post-production.

Students at NYU Florence flocked to this special event. “There was an outstanding participation of students, not only from the photography classes but also from other courses,” says Capodacqua.

This talk was one of dozens of events at NYU Florence last fall. Each semester the NYU Florence newsletter advertises between 10 and 12 events weekly. While conversations with prominent artists and scholars are regular occurrences, students can also attend community engagement outings, career mentoring sessions, field trips, and workshops on everything from art restoration to pasta making. Notable fall semester events included the olive harvest at Villa La Pietra, a field trip to the coastal region of Cinque Terre, a symposium on the 2024 US election and its implications for Italy, theatrical performances, and many more.

The students in attendance at Campigotto’s talk at NYU Florence, most of whom were studying away from NYU’s New York City campus, were well-equipped to reflect on the photographer’s loving descriptions of New York City and his reflective comparisons of the US and Italy. “I have had the privilege of growing up surrounded by the beauty and history of Venice,” wrote Campigotto in Disoriente. “But I always felt New York to be my real ‘place in the world.’”

Written by Olivia Richter

A Confession That Changes History: NYU Florence’s Marcello Simonetta Discovers New Twist in Pazzi Conspiracy

Posted on by Katie L

A newly found signed confession alters what historians thought they knew about one of history’s greatest conspiracies

Two men seated

Marcello Simonetta, right, narrates a reenactment of the Pazzi Conspiracy at Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio on April 26, 2023, the 500-year anniversary of the event.

Had Antonio Maffei da Volterra successfully assassinated Lorenzo de’ Medici, the course of Italian history would have been altered immensely. The roots of the infamous Pazzi conspiracy to oust the Medici family as rulers of Florence ran deep—everyone from the pope to the king of Naples had a part in it. The failed conspiracy took place over 500 years ago this spring, and today, few people know more about it than NYU Florence instructor Marcello Simonetta. So when he uncovered a confession letter from Antonio Maffei earlier this year, unearthing details never known before of the attempted assassination, Simonetta was astounded.

“I’ve been around these materials for a long time. I know the story quite well. I even wrote a book about it,” says Simonetta. “This confession wasn’t supposed to exist, but it does, and it’s amazing.” Simonetta laughs when he says this, but then notes that distrust is the most important part of being a successful historian. He explains that you have to believe there is more to every story—that the historians who came before you didn’t finish the job and left something more to discover—even when you don’t know what that something is. And in this case, it is a confession letter written and signed by Antonio Maffei shortly before his death.

“It’s the last thing he wrote, because soon after writing the confession, he died,” says Simonetta, who found the confession at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze in a file of poems, wills, and other completely unrelated documents. “Archives are the treasures of our past. If you look close enough, you’ll find things that are unbelievable but true.”

In the confession Maffei shares a timeline for the planned assassination of the Medici brothers (Lorenzo, who was injured, and Guiliano, who did not survive). Unaware of his specific role in the assassination until the day before it happened, he wrote that he arrived in Florence months before April 26, 1478—the day the plot was to be enacted. This information contradicts what writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in Florentine Histories, which is considered one of the most accurate accounts of the conspiracy. But just the existence of the confession—that Maffei even had time to write it—debunks the idea that he was beaten and hanged immediately after the attack.

“There are a lot of details about the preparation of the conspiracy, which we didn’t know before,” explains Simonetta. “But the bottom line is we had no idea that Antonio arrived seven months ahead of time. These are all incredible details that make it very real and very human. The failure of the conspiracy is astounding, but also the conspiracy itself, as Machiavelli points out among other things, is extraordinary.”

Simonetta is an expert on Machiavelli and teaches a class about him at NYU Florence. As a matter of fact, Simonetta made the discovery at the same time the class was reading Machiavelli’s On Conspiracies, specifically the section about the Pazzi conspiracy.

Handwritten Italian text on a piece of paper

Antonio Maffei’s confession of the attempted assassination

“The students had read the materials, but they didn’t know there was this new element that had just surfaced from the dust of the past, so I used it in the class,” Simonetta notes. “When I can, I love to use firsthand documents because it makes history so much more alive. And that’s what history is all about. It’s about imagination; without imagination it’s just data. It’s raw data, so who cares? But when history becomes living history, which is a pun—lethal history more than living in this case—it comes alive.”

Simonetta says that having the opportunity to bring history to life for his students has been one of his favorite parts about teaching at NYU Florence. Teaching in the city where these events took place, he adds, brings a dynamic to the classroom experience that is unobtainable anywhere else in the world.

“I’ve taught classes about Machiavelli in the United States, but it’s not the same as going to the Basilica di Santa Croce and seeing his tomb. Or going to the villa where he wrote The Prince,” Simonetta concludes. “It becomes so real: you can touch it, you can feel it exactly as it is. So being here, in Florence, is an enormous plus for my students and for me.”

Written by Kelly McHugh-Stewart

Faculty Spotlight: Justin Randolph Thompson

Posted on by Maxine P
Three students of color talking with the Florence Duomo in the distance.

NYU Florence students enjoying the view of the Duomo from Piazzale Michelangelo

One marker of success when spending extended time in a new place (especially as a student) is how comprehensively one engages with the local culture. At NYU Florence, students are immersed in Italian and, specifically, Florentine culture through a range of courses and activities. And for over six years, Global Lecturer Justin Randolph Thompson has worked to ensure that experience includes the rich history of Black people in Italy.

In addition to his role as a lecturer at NYU Florence, Thompson, an artist, cultural facilitator, and educator, is the cofounder and director of Black History Month Florence, a multifaceted exploration of Black histories and cultures in the context of Italy. He also works with faculty and students to provide support for study abroad programs, offer internships and workshops, and share a space to connect with Black culture abroad. As a young man living in Italy, Thompson, who has lived between the United States and Italy since 1999, found that his relationship to Blackness was very much shaped by his environment.

Black History Month Florence

The first Black History Month Florence was created in 2016 to inspire much-needed connection—as a way to link Thompson’s projects to institutions in Florence and elevate his message. “Blackness extends into antiquity; there has never been a time in Italian history when there were not Black people here. But the country needed a framework to engage in more expansive conversations about Blackness.” Therefore, Thompson and cofounder Andre Thomas Halyard worked to build a network of like-minded people, artists, and writers to engage people with this history.

“In 1926 historian Carter G. Woodson established Black History Month because there was a need to tell a more complete story about the United States. And 90 years later, there was a need to tell a more complete story about Italy,” Thompson explains. This year’s celebration, which began on February 1, has expanded to include about 50 events, and its network now stretches across Italy and beyond. “It’s a huge cultural moment,” Thompson says. “Every single time we’re able to pull this together thanks to a range of partners, it is an incredible demonstration of what’s possible.”

The Recovery Plan

Now that Thompson’s work has grown, Black History Month Florence is but one piece of a much more comprehensive puzzle. The Recovery Plan, which developed from the success of Black History Month Florence, is a Black cultural center that examines the history and contemporary legacy of Blackness in a global context. The center hosts a range of exhibitions, performances, lectures, seminars, workshops, and residencies designed to reflect upon Italy as a historic site for cultural exchange.

The Recovery Plan collaborates with organizations and institutions throughout and beyond Italy, supporting young Black Italian artists. The center also nourishes an archive and library for the study of Afrodescendent cultures while helping to provide training and support to its partners.

“This is the work that really needs to happen in order to safeguard layers of history that have been consistently excluded,” Thompson says. “These absences impact all of society.”

The Work Together Is the Reward

Thompson has exhibited and performed at institutions all over the world, including the Contemporary at Blue Star art institution in San Antonio, Texas; Villa Romana in Florence, Italy; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, New York; and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain. He has also won a number of awards, including a 2022 Creative Capital Award, a 2020 Italian Council Research Fellowship, and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Competition award.

These awards have given Thompson the freedom to experiment and push the boundaries of his work, beginning projects and bringing on new partners even if he doesn’t know the outcome from the start. As an educator, he follows a similar philosophy: “My teaching—and the way I live my life—is about developing a relationship where we can question everything and exchange what it is that we do know,” he says. “Together, we create a more complete picture. Every one of us can contribute such important things to this world.”

Written by Sarah Bender