Let me tell ya 'bout the birds and the bees
And the flowers and the trees
And the moon up above
And a thing called love

Jewel Akens, 1964

In The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari says this about Leonardo da Vinci:
…he took special pleasure in horses...

In this talk, we will explore a true Renaissance “Whoddunit.” Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, an Italian painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute...

Brides, Grooms, and the Visual Culture of Betrothal and Marriage in Renaissance Italy

Marriage in Renaissance Italy involved careful negotiations between families, exchanges of gifts, and commissions for furnishings and works of art to decorate a new couple’s home. This talk will explore images ...

Connoisseurship, Criticism and Collecting in the Gilded Age: Remembering Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson is known to many in the field of Italian Renaissance art as an American connoisseur, critic, and aesthetic theorist.  Born in Lithuania, Berenson grew up in Boston and entered Harvard in 18...

How Can this be Done: The Miracle of the Annunciation Versus the Facts of Life in Renaissance Painting

The Annunciation, observed on March 25, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the archangel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of Jesus, that she would conceive and bear a son. The Bible...

This lecture traces the construction of a sonic regime in Renaissance Florence that was based on the casting, placement, and ringing of civic bells. In confronting the formidable but mute power of the defensive towers that dominated the city’s skyline in the late middle ages, successive republica...

The Castle of Bracciano: Restoring the Honor of Isabella de' Medici and Paolo Giordano Orsini

The Castle of Bracciano is one of the biggest private manors in Italy. Built in the 1470s under Napoleone Orsini and his son Gentil Virginio, it was restored in mid-16th century when Paolo Giordano Orsi...

Dr Meghan Callahan

In the 18th and 19th centuries, British artists and architects travelled to Europe on The Grand Tour, considered a vital part of their education. Their ultimate destination was Italy, where they explored the ruins of Rome, encountered the Florentine Renaissance, and wandered a...

Dr. Nicholas Albanese

Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro de Silva – better known as Anita Garibaldi – has been commemorated as one of the most well-known heroines of the Italian Risorgimento. Her story is indelibly tied to that of her husband, the Italian patriot, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who she met and fou...

Dr. Matteo Duni

The witch, an enduring presence in current pop culture, is imagined alternatively as a scary, horror movie-like creature with supernatural powers or as a harmless, actually benevolent and even funny presence, that dispenses good humor as well as magical recipes. The complex histo...

Dr. Fabrizio Ricciardelli

The Medici dynasty is one of the most famous in history. The story of the family was inextricably bound up with Florence, the city of the Renaissance, and influenced its destiny from the time of Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464) up to the reign of Gian Gastone (1671-1737). I...

The Beautiful and the Damned: Portraits of the First Dukes and Duchesses of Florence
Dr. Marcello Simonetta

This lecture will focus on the portraits of the first dukes and duchesses of Florence, namely Alessandro and Cosimo I de' Medici, and their wives Marguerite of Austria and Eleonora de Tole...

Dr. Peter Weller and Jordan Ledy

In the wake of the Second World War, a film movement emerged from the wreckage of fascist-partisan Italy that we now call Neorealism, although _**Realism **_might better encapsulate the films that were produced from 1943-1952. Utilizing real locations over studio...

Ross King

Why did Julius Caesar speak his last words in Greek? Why are the world’s best-preserved Greek temples in Sicily and the South of Italy? Why did Plato visit Italy? This lecture will look at how in Plato’s time the South of Italy was known as “Greater Greece”—the beautiful land settled i...

Dr. Eric Nicholson

What gave the unique city of Venice an almost irresistible allure for early modern English people, and made it a dynamic setting for outstanding plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries? This is a key question of this special webinar, also a preview of my three-part seminar...

Dr. Joe Luzzi

The child of Italian immigrants and an award-winning author, teacher, and scholar, Professor Joseph Luzzi will discuss how his “two Italies”––the southern Italian world of his immigrant childhood and the northern Italian realm of his professional life, especially Florence—join and ...

Dr. Sally J. Cornelison

Considered the father of art history and one of the most important personalities of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) is best known as the author of the “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects,” a collection of artist biographies t...

Dr. Matteo Duni

For about three centuries (1400-1700), Europeans believed that some persons would make a pact with the Devil and renounce Christianity, fly over broomsticks to huge gatherings where they would kill and eat babies, urinate on the cross, and worship Satan as their god. Church and s...

Dr. Jeremy Wasser

Medieval and Renaissance altarpieces found in churches throughout Europe and in museum collections worldwide, represent some of the most beautiful and profound examples of religious art. What may not be obvious, is that along with a great deal of religious symbology many altarp...

Dr. Gary Radke

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) revolutionized European painting with his dramatically lit compositions. Never before had an artist made darkness such an equal partner with light, inspiring an international vogue for scenes taking place at night and in minimally lit ...

Dr. Marcello Simonetta

How did politics influence Michelangelo's career? Was he supported by the Medici or is this a myth built after his death? How fictional is the image we have of him as an artist without political inclinations? In this webinar we will try to address and answer all these ques...

Dr. Meghan Callahan

In the 1850s, a group of artists including William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais declared themselves the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood. The art critic John Ruskin promoted their desire to return English painting to the pure Italian style prior to de...

Dr. Mary Ann Calo

Images of women were everywhere in the Gilded Age, so much so that historians talk about the era in terms of the “feminization” of American culture. This refers not only to women being involved in culture, as patrons, artists, and viewers, but also to the ubiquity of women as s...

Susan Jaques

Though Napoleon declared France to be his only mistress, he was also enamored with Italy which he would make part of his empire. Early in his career, stunning military victories across Northern Italy turned the young general into a national hero, propelling him to power. Shortly aft...