julia ehlert

The Ospedale degli Innocenti was an orphanage, hospital, and powerful institution in Florence, Italy during the Renaissance and for the following century. The Ospedale building is now a notable tourist attraction with a museum dedicated to its history. While studying abroad in Florence, I had the opportunity to work with a group of museology students who were researching some of the paintings at the Ospedale. Their work focused on the inclusion of textiles in these paintings; during the Renaissance, paintings served as quasi-advertisements, promoting specific silks, guilds, and important political figures. Each painting tells a story of the society, trade, and power dynamics of Renaissance Florence. The museology students then consulted me to translate their research into an interactive display, which I designed and built with Adobe InDesign.

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The video below is a screen-recorded demo of the interactive.