Océane Fontaine Cioffi

Océane Fontaine Cioffi is a PhD candidate in early modern history at the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Renaissance (CESR, University of Tours, France), within the research group FaireSavoiR (“Making and Know-How in the Renaissance”). Situated within the history of science and technology, her research examines perfumery in 16th-century France, focusing on artisanal practices, recipe literature, and the circulation of practical and sensory knowledge. She combines textual analysis with the study of materials, techniques, and embodied expertise. She contributed to the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci and the Perfumes of the Renaissance (2024, Clos Lucé), where she curated a gallery and collaborated on the reconstruction of historical fragrances. At the Science History Institute, she will examine a corpus of printed books of secrets and recipe collections (16th–early 17th century) to investigate how knowledge related to scents was organized, transmitted, and put into practice, treating perfumes as epistemic objects.