Conference honours Monash visionary
Professor Bill Kent
A landmark conference on the Medici family, co-hosted by Monash and Harvard universities, has been dedicated to the late Professor Bill Kent, who was one of the world’s foremost scholars on the influential Florentine family.
The wealthy Medici family effectively ruled Florence for centuries. Their influence on the city's culture, architecture, art and politics is clear, even today.
Located just half an hour from Florence, Monash University's Prato Centre hosted the interdisciplinary conference, “The Medici in the Fifteenth Century: Signori of Florence?”, together with the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti).
Professor Kent, whose research focus was the Medici during the Renaissance period, was the founding Director of Monash University's Prato Centre.
Dr Peter Howard of Monash University's School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies and Director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Monash, was one of the organisers of the conference.
"Bill was a leading expert in this area and his work has been fundamental to our understanding of the Medici,” Dr Howard said.
“He was involved in initial discussions about the conference and he would be pleased and honoured to know that his scholarly contribution has been recognised in this way."
Dr Howard emphasised the relevance of the Italian Renaissance for understanding the development of Western culture.
"Many of our modern ideas - political, cultural, social and religious - come from this period of history. The Medici were so influential at the time that it's not an exaggeration to say that they played a considerable role in shaping Western civilisation."
Professor Kent's career at Monash spanned four decades and combined both teaching and research. The first volume of his planned two-volume biography of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his collected essays will be published in the near future.
The Bill Kent Library, comprising an important collection of Italian Renaissance publications drawn from the scholarly library of his mentor, Nicolai Rubinstein (d. 2002) has been established at the Prato Centre. This library is to be the focus of research activity in relation to Medieval and Renaissance history at Monash. The Bill Kent Foundation Fund will help ensure that the library continues to expand.