Kathryn Jasper

When I look out my bedroom window every morning I can see the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, one of the most enduring symbols of Florence. That is, next to Brunelleschi's dome, an architectural masterpiece that dominates the cityscape, which also happens to be right up the street. But I am in Florence with a purpose beyond enjoying the art and architecture (not to mention the cappuccinos). I came to study how a congregation of monastic communities managed property in the eleventh century. Many of their economic transactions are preserved in the Archivio di San Lorenzo, located in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, which is one of the most famous repositories of manuscripts in the world. I work in the sala di studio housed in a fifteenth-century cloister, which is quite appropriate considering my dissertation topic.

In a fashion similar to the monks I study, I spend my days hunched over parchments trying to decipher a scribe's scrawled Latin. Typically these charters contain information such as the price at which a monastery purchased land, or there might be a request for water rights to operate a mill. Although it sounds fairly straightforward, as all historians know, sometimes things will turn up in a document you didn't expect--some wonderful discoveries, some frustrating road blocks. Thus far I have already experienced quite a few surprises. One of the best things about my research is getting to work with these ancient primary sources, handling charters that were written almost a thousand years ago. After deciphering and transcribing the charters, I leave the cloistered archive and start the truly difficult part of my day, deciding which type of pizza I should have for dinner. I spend a part of the evening going over what I did in the archive before falling asleep to the sounds of Florence.