Project Description

The Italian Renaissance was a transformative period marked by extraordinary advances in art, architecture, literature, and science. For centuries scholars have steadfastly archived, transcribed, and translated artifacts of this extraordinary place in time, particularly those present in Florence, the cradle of the Renaissance.

This area of research examines the rich historical context of the Renaissance through an organizational leadership lens. The central research question is: which aspects of leadership may have contributed to the Italian Renaissance? In what ways do the unique theoretical lenses through which leadership scholars have peered enable an appreciation of the personal and societal outcomes of leadership during the Italian Renaissance?

Leadership and the Italian Renaissance:  A Historiometric Study of the Early Medici in Florence (1393-1503)

This project focuses on five individuals and their relation to governmental structures, guilds, elites, and neighboring city states: Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici (1360-1429), Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464), Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici (1418-1469), and Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492), Piero di Lorenzo (1471-1503). None was a prince born with formal power. These five individuals were all informal heads of state in Florence, all members of one family, the Medici. Together they are known as the early Medici. Using historiometric methods, we examine the leadership in Florence under the early Medici.

Renaissance Women: A leadership perspective on the the Medici women in Florence (1434-1537)

Much attention has been paid to understanding how and why the city of Florence was so central to the larger movement, and in particular, to the contributions of the influential male members of the Medici banking family. This study highlights the often-overlooked role of women leaders which has been understudied in investigations of the Medici in Florence: Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Clarice Orsini, Alfonsina Orsini, Maddalena Cibo, Lucrezia Salviati, and Maria Salviati. These women were selected due to the existing historical documentation of their lives, offering a unique lens to examine the nature of their leadership during a transformative period. Moreover, these six women lived in Florence during a particularly significant period spanning from Lucrezia Tornabuoni’s era, when the Medici were rising as informal leaders, to Maria Salviati’s time, when they became hereditary Dukes. This analysis provides insights into how these women’s leadership adapted and expanded in tandem with the family’s growing power at a time when “Oh do not be born a woman if you want your own way (Tomas, 2017, p.1),” as Lorenzo the Magnificent’s sister Nannina remarked to her mother Lucrezia.

Nguyen, K., Javalagi, A., DeChurch, L. A. (2024, August). Leading a renaissance: Leadership dynamics within and across the Medici (1360-1503). Paper presented at the 84rd annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, IL.

DeChurch, L. A., Javalagi, A., Nguyen, K., & Murphy, K. (2023, August). Leadership and the Italian Renaissance (1360-1503). In Academy of Management Proceedings, 2023(1).

DeChurch, C., & Contractor, N.S. (2018). Using network science to discover the grand masters of the Florentine renaissance. In L.M. Aiello, C. Cherifi, H. Cherifi, R. Lambiotte, P. Lio, & L.M. Rocha (Eds.), In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Complex Networks and Their Applications (pp. 358-360).

DeChurch, L. A., Javalagi, A. A., Nguyen, K., Murphy, K. (2023, August). Leadership and the Italian Renaissance (1360-1503). Paper presented at the 83rd annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Boston, MA.

DeChurch, L. A. (2022, May). Leadership and the Italian Renaissance: A historiometric study of the early Medici in Florence (1393-1521). [Conference Presentation]. 5th Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Leadership Symposium, Mykonos, Greece.

Awards 

  • 2024 Sage Award for the best management history paper on leadership. Nguyen, K., Javalagi, A., DeChurch, L. A. Leading a renaissance: Leadership dynamics within and across the Medici (1360-1503).
  • 2023 Sage Award for the best management history paper on leadership. DeChurch, L. A., Javalagi, A., Nguyen, K., & Murphy, K. (2023, August). Leadership and the Italian Renaissance (1360-1503).
  • Best Paper Award at the 2023 Academy of Management (Management History Division). DeChurch, L. A., Javalagi, A., Nguyen, K., & Murphy, K. (2023, August). Leadership and the Italian Renaissance (1360-1503).

Research supported by: 

  • Northwestern University, Undergraduate Research Assistant Program (URAP; 2022-2023)
  • Northwestern University, School of Communication, Early Research Experience Award (EREA; 2022-2024)