Heather Smith

This born-digital dissertation focuses on festivals in ducal Tuscany under the Medici (1539-1737). I examine how the ducal family used music, symbolic imagery, and ephemeral architecture in triumphal entries, baptisms, marriages, and funerals as part of a suite of sensory mechanisms of control to construct a state apparatus throughout Tuscany.
Tracking performances and correlating them with demographic data and ritual sites can demonstrate how power played out across sound and space, while street songs reveal popular responses. Through this multi-modal dissertation, my project seeks to bring the soundscape of the early modern festival to life by combining a socio-historical approach with digital humanities tools, such as 3D modelling, animated mapping, and audio recording, to better understand the multi-faceted impact of early modern street music on urban populations.
By Combining research data and digital humanities tools, I will assess the intersections of space, sound, and ritual at critical ritual and dynastic moments. Through this analysis, I seek to illuminate how music and sound may have communicated dominance, reinforced marginality, or negotiated power.