University Park, Pa. -- Marica S. Tacconi, professor of musicology, has been appointed the Robert Lehman Visiting Professor in Residence at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. During her research residency in Florence from January to June of 2011, Tacconi will join the center’s intellectual community of 15 post-doctoral fellows and three visiting professors to work on a new scholarly project, “The Rhetoric of Echo in the Music of the Late Renaissance.” She will be investigating the concept of echo in sacred and secular music of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, examining the repertoire in a multidisciplinary context that also will consider the idea of echo in the visual arts and in literature. Tacconi was a post-doctoral fellow at Villa I Tatti in 2002-03.
Specializing in music history and manuscript studies, Tacconi’s interdisciplinary research interests also include the art, culture and history of late medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque Italy. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in music (with highest honors) from Williams College and a doctorate in musicology from Yale University. Tacconi’s scholarly contributions have appeared in numerous journals, collections of essays and exhibition catalogues. Her most recent monograph is Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence: The Service Books of Santa Maria del Fiore (Cambridge University Press, 2005). She served as director of the Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities (2005-10) and is an elected board member of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is devoted to advanced study of the Italian Renaissance in all aspects, including the history of art; political, economic, and social history; the history of science, philosophy and religion; and the history of literature and music. Visiting professors are senior scholars who are chosen on the merits of their research and proposed projects. During their research residency, they are also expected to serve as role models and mentors for the fellows, who are at earlier stages of their careers. For more information about the center, visit http://www.itatti.it/ online.