What is 'international' or 'gothic' about the 'international gothic'? 

This seminar will examine the current exhibition at the Galleria degli Uffizi: Bagliori dorati: Il Gotico Internazionale a Firenze 1375-1440. Having discussed museological questions about how the show constructs an argument for stylistic diversity in Florentine art around the year 1400, we will move on to consider why this pluralism should be called ‘international gothic’. The term comes out of a particular historiographic tradition and carries with it certain political associations. It will be questioned whether such connotations are as relevant now as they were in the late 1880s when the phrase was first used.