New College of Florida will host a roundtable discussion titled “Imagining the World of the Italian Renaissance” from 5–7 p.m. on Thursday, December 5 in Sainer Pavilion. Organized by Carrie Beneš, a professor of medieval and Renaissance history at New College, speakers will also include subject experts Chet Van Duzer, Jessica Maier, and Laura Morreale. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets must be reserved in advance. Aimed at a public audience, this roundtable will explore the nature of maps and the history of European exploration in the history of the Italian Renaissance. By considering questions of geographical knowledge, artistic representation, map production, and spatial projection, the presentation will broaden attendees’ understanding of Renaissance culture and world history before the Age of Exploration, while also introducing them to some of the digital techniques scholars now use to study such maps. The event is partly sponsored by a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation earned by Beneš, a cultural historian of late medieval Italy whose research focuses on landscape, urban identity and the classical tradition. Each participating scholar brings their own unique research background and skillset in topics like Renaissance art, cartography, and spatial projection.Beneš and Morreale are both co-directors of the Le Sfera Project, an open-access multimedia edition of Goro Dati’s 15th-century poem La Sfera (The Globe) that has won two major grants for collaborative research from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information about upcoming events at New College, visit NCF.edu.

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