Networks and Self-Presentation in 15th Century Florence
Fireworks Photo Caption	My research on Renaissance Florentine patronage letters draws on Erving Goffman's work on frame analysis and on more recent discourse analysis concepts to examine how Florentine office-seekers tried to portray their own aptness for civic employment through letters written to the Medici and other powerful families.  Writers had to use existing cultural repertoires of action, but also assemble them in distinctive ways, to communicate their message.  Both quantitative (multidimensional scaling) and qualitative methods are used to present an interactionist approach to political culture.  See my article on this topic in the American Journal of Sociology 104,1 (July 1998):51-91, for more details.  I have recently finished a book-length manuscript on this topic, and I have a recent article in Comparative Studies in Society and History 47, 3 (July 2005):638-64 on how the institution of patronage affected the development of the Florentine state.

For a look at what one of these letters looks like, click on the following link!