Endoscopy survey of the double-shell dome (2024)

The team travelled to Soltaniyeh for the first of the planned surveys of the Mausoleum of Oljaitu: the survey of the space between the two brick domes of the mausoleum. After the completion of the a map of all the holes left by the disappearance of the wooden poles of the temporary scaffolding built at the time of the construction, we were able to document through photos and videos the interior space of the dome, discovering the areas left intact and the ones that were restored. 22-26 November 2024.

Presentation on European Medieval structures 1/3 (2024)

Dr. Vigotti presented the first of a three-lecture series on European Medieval structures, to introduce SBU architecture students and faculty members to the traditions of medieval materiality in medieval architecture. The first presentation was held on 5 November 2024 and titled: Historical Sources for Researching Medieval European Architecture: Archives, Models, Images.

Presentation on Marco Polo’s Venice (2024)

Dr. Vigotti presented an introduction on the architecture of Venice at the time of Marco Polo, with an emphasis on cultural exchanges between the city and the experiences that Venetian merchants, diplomats, and clergy experienced along the Silk Road and in Persia. This was part of the program organized by the Italian Embassy in Tehran and the Italian School Pietro della Valle for the 24th Week of the Italian Language in the world (18 October 2024).

Presentation at University of Tehran (2024)

This meeting was held on Tuesday, October 9, 2024, by the International Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts, chaired by Dr. Alireza Azhdari, in collaboration with the Scientific Association of Architecture at the University of Tehran. Before the meeting, Dr. Seyyed Yahya Islami discussed the possibility of further collaborations between the School of Architecture at the University of Tehran and the School of Architecture at the University of Bologna in a session with Professor Lorenzo Vigotti. The head of the School of Architecture also expressed gratitude to Professor Vigotti for his presence at the University of Tehran and for holding the lecture session by presenting a certificate of appreciation. See UT’s website in Farsi and English.

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).

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.

DOMES website online (2024)

On March 2024, the website with the new 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: 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.

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.

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 (Post-doc at Kunsthistoriches Institut in Florenz – Max-Plank Institut) 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 (PhD student at Columbia University) 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 study of 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.