The monastery of the Badia Fiesolana on the outskirts of Florence has often been seen as a secondary project of the Medici. However new research has shown that the family's involvement in its financial, cultural, intellectual, religious and artistic affairs is central to its development under Cosimo and Lorenzo de'Medici during the 15th century. In the remarkable setting of the Badia, where art and architectural structure was studied anew, erudite abbots encountered learned humanists. The proceedings of a conference held in 2013 shed new light on cultural and scholarly life in and around Florence.

Angela Dressen is Andrew W. Mellon Librarian at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Klaus Pietschmann is Professor for Musicology at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.