Lectures at Shahid Beheshti University (2024)

Dr. Lorenzo Vigotti and Prof. Hadi Safaeipour (Shahid Behesthi University) presented to the faculty and students of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran. The program included a seminar focusing on the study project of the structural construction of Gonbad-e Soltaniye, demonstrating the necessity of exploring architectural history through the lens of construction history. Dr. Safaeipour announced the establishment of the Center for Construction History Studies in Iranian Architecture at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, SBU. See the news on SBU’ website in Farsi and on UniBoMagazine in Italian (11 June 2024).

Lectures in Soltaniyeh (2024)

This was the third major event organized by Safaeipour and Vigotti for the Soltaniyeh Project. During the morning meetings were held between Dr. Hadi Safaeipour and Dr. Lorenzo Vigotti with officials from the City of Soltaniye and Zanjan Province. Attendees included Dr. Mohammad Reza Barati, Mr. Mostafa Kalantari, Dr. Leila Mohammadi, Dr. Abolfazl Aali, Mr. Seyyed Mehdi Aghamiri (Director of Education in Soltaniye city), Ms. Parvaneh Asgari (Head of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Department of Soltaniye City and the Head of Dashkasen National Heritage Site), along with the Gonbad_e_Soltaniye World Heritage Site’s experts. Dr. Safaeipour briefed the officials on the background and research objectives, and he discussed their concerns, issues, and needs.

In the afternoon, the program included five introductory talks and two technical lectures. Dr. Safaeipour addressed the audience with a lecture titled “Recognition of the Structural Architecture and Construction Techniques of Gonbad_e_Soltaniye”, and Dr. Vigotti illustrated the results of his preliminary historical study titled “Diplomatic, Cultural, and Artistic Exchanges on the Silk Road between Ilkhanate Iran and Italy” (10 June 2024).

Fieldtrip: Organizing the Survey of the Mausoleum of Oljaitu (2024)

Dr. Lorenzo Vigotti and Prof. Hadi Safaeipour (Shahid Beheshti University) visited Soltaniyeh to make the necessary preparatory technical and bureaucratic arrangements for the full survey of the dome of the Mausoleum of Oljaitu, together with the following experts: engineer Farzad Zerehdaran and engineer Manizheh Khademi (experts in Iranian architectural studies), Dr. Abolfazl Aali (Director of the Gonbad_e_Soltaniye World Heritage Site), Mohammad Moradi (a restoration expert at the Gonbad_e_Soltaniye World Heritage Site), and engineer Farshad Salehi (a specialist in photogrammetry and laser scanning of historical buildings) (9 June 2024).

Conference: International Congress on Medieval Studies 2024

Lorenzo Vigotti presented his paper “Architectural Technology Transfer on the Silk Road: Iranian Double-Shell Domes and the West,” in the panel “Conceptualizing the Knowledge of Artists and Builders in the Global Middle Ages” at the 59^th International Congress on Medieval Studies, held at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo (USA), 9-11 May 2024.

Article: Artisanal Knowledge as a Transcultural Category (2024)

“Migrating Inventions. Piero Sanpaolesi and the Case of the Double-Shelled Domes in Sultanyeh and Santa Maria del Fiore,” co-authored between Lorenzo Vigotti and Prof. Dario Donetti (University of Verona), will be published in the volume Artisanal Knowledge as a Transcultural Category, edited by J. Baumgarten, C. Farago and S. Lowish (London/New York: Routledge, 2024).

DOMES website online (2024)

On March 2024, the website and the logo of DOMES was published online at www.iraniandomes.eu to inform a larger public about the scope and ongoing results of the project.

Lecture: Successful Strategies for applying to MSCA (2024)

Presentation on the project and strategies for a successful application for an MSCA Global Fellowship for PhD Students currently Enrolled in the Visual, Performing, and Media Arts doctoral program at the Department of the Arts, University of Bologna, 14 March 2024.

Lecture: Diplomatic gifts from Persia (2024)

Lorenzo Vigotti presented an online lecture on “Diplomatic gifts from Persia to the Ottoman Empire, 1576,” for the Friends of Medici Archive Project on 3 January 2024, in which he detailed the exotic goods brought by Persian ambassadors to Europe during the 16th century, and the cultural exchange that followed.

Article: Il lungo viaggio della spina pesce (2023)

Lorenzo Vigotti and Prof. Silvia Benvenuti (Dept. of Mathematics, University of Bologna) co-authored “Il lungo viaggio della spina pesce,” on the monthly magazine focusing on the mathematics of the construction of domes in Soltaniyeh and Florence. See Prisma. Matematica, giochi, idee sul mondo, 58 (December 2023), pp. 62-65.

Workshop: Nights of European Researchers (2023)

Lorenzo Vigotti was invited to participate at the Notte Europea dei Ricercatori (Nights of the European Researchers), organized by the University of Bologna on 29 October 2023 in a public square in the center of the city of Bologna. Vigotti organized a stand with information about the project and interactive activities to engage students from elementary to high school. See https://www.nottedeiricercatori-society.eu/.

Grant: MSCA Global Fellowship awarded (2023)

Lorenzo Vigotti received a 3-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Global Fellowship by the European Commission, co-host by the Department of the Arts at the University of Bologna and the School of Architecture at the University of Tehran. The grant for the DOMES project started on 1 September 2023.

Lecture: Renaissances, Plural: Exchanges with Ottoman, Persian, and African Cultures (2023)

Following the invitation of Prof. Mark Rakatansky (Architectural School, Columbia University), Lorenzo Vigotti lectured on “Renaissances, Plural: Exchanges with Ottoman, Persian, and African Cultures” for architectural master students at the Graduate School of Architecture, Columbia University. During the lecture, the global phenomenon of architectural exchanges between the Mediterranean area and the Middle East were discussed with the students (22 February 2023).

Lecture: Research Week at Iranology Foundation (2022)

Lorenzo Vigotti and Prof. Hadi Safaeipour (Architecture School, Shahid Beheshti University) presented “Diplomatic, Cultural, and Artistic Exchanges along the Silk Road between Ilkhanid Iran and Italy” during the International and National Research Week, at the Iranology Foundation in Tehran, Iran, 19 December 2022.

Conference: College Art Association (2022)

Lorenzo Vigotti presented his paper titled “Diplomatic Exchanges and Architectural Inventions along the Silk Road: The Case of Soltaniyeh and Santa Maria del Fiore” during the College Art Association held in Chicago, 16-19 February 2022.

Conference: Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art [CIHA] (2022)

Lorenzo Vigotti and Prof. Dario Donetti (Art History, University of Verona) presented “Migrating Inventions. The Double-Shell Domes of Soltaniyeh and Santa Maria del Fiore” during the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art held in San Paolo, Brazil, on January 17-21 2022.

Publication: New Horizons in Trecento Italian Art (2021)

Lorenzo Vigotti published an essay titled “The Ilkhanid-Italian Relationship during the Trecento: Medieval Persian Prototypes for Brunelleschi’s Dome in Florence” in the volume New Horizons in Trecento Italian Art, edited by Karl Whittington and Bryan Keene (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 157-70. This essay is a short survey of the cultural, diplomatic, and religious exchanges between northern Iran and Italy (especially Florence) during the 14th and early 15th centuries.

Conference: Celebrating the 600 years of Brunelleschi’s dome (2020)

Lorenzo Vigotti presented “Le cupole nella storia: modelli mediorientali e locali per San Michele Arcangelo a Semifonte,” [Middle Eastern and local models for the construction of the dome of the church of San Michele] during the cycle of conference Nel seicentesimo anniversario della cupola del Brunelleschi, held in Barberino Tavarnelle (FI) on 3 October 2020.

University Seminar: Il mausoleo di Uljaytu, Soltanyieh, Iran (2019)

This was the second major event organized by Vigotti and Safaeipour for the Soltaniyeh Project. A week-long seminar was held at the School of Architecture at the University of Florence for a selected number of advanced students and members of the faculty to prepare the group to embark into a field trip to survey the Mausoleum of Oljaitu in Soltaniyeh in partnership with students and faculty from Shahid Beheshti University, following the agreement signed by the two universities. Prof. Hadi Safaeipour, Dr. Lorenzo Vigotti and other experts on Italian domes and architectural survey were among the speakers. 4-17 July 2019.

Agreement signed between the University of Florence and Shahid Beheshti University (2019)

A selected group of professors from the University of Florence (led by Prof. Susanna Caccia Gherardini) visited the School of Architecture at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran to sign an academic agreement of cooperation between the two institutions, following a similar document signed in 1963 by the Director of the Florentine school of architecture Prof. Piero Sanpaolesi and the Dean of the National University, today SBU. Unfortunately the following Covid pandemic halted the implementation of such agreement.

Conference: From Sultanyya to Florence: Architectural Design and Craftmanship Traditions in the Fourteenth-and-Fifteenth-Century Architecture (2019)

This was the first major event organized by Safaeipour and Vigotti for the Soltaniyeh Project. Lorenzo Vigotti presented his talk “Diplomatic Exchanges and Architectural Inventions along the Silk Road between Soltaniyeh and Italy during the Fourteenth Century,” during the conference From Sultanyya to Florence: Architectural Design and Craftmanship Traditions in the Fourteenth-and-Fifteenth-Century Architecture held at Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, and organized by Prof. Hadi Safaeipour (23-24 February 2019). Read more about the event on Tehran Times.

Conference: Andrew Ladis Memorial Trecento Conference (2018)

Lorenzo Vigotti gave a talk titled “Ilkhanid-Italian Relationship during the Trecento: Persian Medieval Prototypes for Brunelleschi’s Dome in Florence” during the first Andrew Ladis Memorial Trecento Conference held at the University of Houston, 8-10 November 2018.

Lecture & Workshop at the KHI (2018)

Lorenzo Vigotti and Dario Donetti invited Prof. Hadi Safaeipour (Shahid Behesthi University) at the Kuntshistorisches Institut in Florence to present: “Muqarnas Rediscovered: Domes’ Making in Tenth- Through Fourteenth-Century Iran” (link) and to participate in a workshop on Iranian and Italian domes titled Understanding the Structural Framework of the Soltaniye Double-Shell Dome, 3-4 June 2018.

Conference: Royal Swedish Research Institut in Istanbul (2017)

Lorenzo Vigotti presented the early results of its historical research as “Migrating Inventions: The Case of the Double-Shell Domes in Sultanyeh and Santa Maria del Fiore” during the conference Synagogues, Churches, Mosques: Connections and Interactions, held at the Royal Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 16-18 November 2017.

Field mission: Structural analysis of the Mausoleum of Oljaitu in Soltaniyeh by the KHI (2016)

After a number of explorations in Iran, Lorenzo Vigotti led a mission of multidisciplinary scholars from the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, including Director Alessandro Nova, focusing on medieval and early modern monuments and double-shell brick domes (Seljuck, Ilkhanid, and Safavid periods) in December 2016. Lorenzo Vigotti and Dario Donetti met with Prof. Hadi Safaeipour (Shahid Behesthi University) and became aware of the archive left by Sanpaolesi in Tehran (only the material in Florence was known).

Grant: Documenting Iranian Medieval Monuments (2013)

Lorenzo Vigotti received a $1,000 2013 SAHARA Grant from the Society of Architectural Historians to take 2,000 photos of medieval Iranian monuments during a 1-month fieldwork. During this experience the idea of a project focused on medieval exchanges between Italy and Iran was considered. The mission was published as “The Seljuq and Ilkhanid Architecture of Medieval Persia,” Society of Architectural Historians Newsletter (4 October 2013) [link]; selected photos are available on JSTOR database.

Publication: Piero Sanpaolesi’s and Reza Kassai’s Project for the restoration of the Mausoleum of Oljaitu in Soltaniyeh (ca. 1972)

Piero Sanpaolesi and Reza Kassai published a 2-volume study containing their analysis of the Mausoleum of Oljaitu and their proposal for its full restoration, from the structure of the dome to the conservation of the double layer of decoration. The extent of the restoration carried out in the following years is one of the goal of the DOMES project.

Publication: Pietro Sanpaolesi’s article comparing the domes in Soltaniyeh and in Florence (1972)

On the 6 April 1971, at Florence’s Kunsthistorisches Institut, Piero Sanpaolesi delivered a lecture that challenged the most canonical view of the supposed artistic revolution of the Quattrocento, by questioning the sources for Brunelleschi’s project for the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. The lecture—later turned into an article– addressed an outstanding comparison between this dome and another example of an early modern domed building, distant in time and space, but surprisingly similar in its technique of construction and typological character [Piero Sanpaolesi, La cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore ed il mausoleo di Soltanieh. Rapporti di forma e struttura fra la cupola del Duomo di Firenze ed il mausoleo del Ilkhan Uljaitu a Soltanieh in Persia, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 16 (1972), 221-260].

Pietro Sanpaolesi nominated Director of the new Institute for the Restoration of National Monuments (1963)

On 23 January 1963, the Dean of the School of Architecture of Florence, Italy Pietro Sanpaolesi was nominated the Director of the newly created Institute for the Restoration of National Monuments at the National University (today called Shahid Beheshti University) in Tehran, Iran. This cultural and scientific partnership between Italy and Iran was one of the many collaborations between the two countries in the fields of archaeology and architecture under the ISMEO.