David must fall! Decentring the renaissance in contemporary and transcultural italian studies

Through a focus on the Florentine Renaissance, and especially one of its most extraordinary icons, Michelangelo’s David, the authors provide two complementary reflections on how the banal and globalised understanding of the Italian Renaissance as the cradle of Western modernity and civilisation impacts on transcultural Italian Studies. The authors are interested in reflecting on how the pervasiveness of an often-idealised and stereotypical fantasy of the Italian and Florentine Renaissance might be challenged. Thus, this is not an article on how to study, research and write about the history of the Renaissance. Rather, the aim is to provide two self-reflective pieces on how scholars working on contemporary, transcultural and transnational Italies might deal with the pervasive idealisation of Italian cultural heritage in contemporary mass culture.