Guest Lectures

Membership benefits:
- Unlimited access to video libraries "Lectures" and "Guest Lectures"
- 2 new videos added weekly
- Download videos to watch offline
- Available on Apple and Android

Share
  • "Bringing Rome Home: The British and The Grand Tour"

    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...

  • Anita and Giuseppe Garibaldi: Love, War and the Making of Italy

    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...

  • The Origin of a Family: The Medici in Florence

    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 & the Damned:Portraits of the First Dukes & Duchesses of Florence

    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...

  • Post-War Italian Cinema with Dr. Peter Weller and Jordan Ledy

    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...

  • Italy and "Greater Greece": A Short History of the Greeks in Italy

    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...

  • Venice: Superstar City of the Shakespearean Stage

    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...

  • "My Two Italies: Personal and Cultural Reflections"

    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 ...

  • The Man Who Invented the Renaissance: Giorgio Vasari’s Art and Life

    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...

  • Doubting Witchcraft- Opposing the Witch-hunt in the Renaissance

    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...

  • At the Altar of Medicine: Medical Secrets in Medieval & Renaissance Altarpieces

    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...

  • Illuminating Caravaggio: Light and Darkness in and around His Paintings

    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 ...

  • Michelangelo's Myth: Between Politics and Fiction

    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...

  • Reframing the Renaissance: The Pre-Raphaelites

    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...

  • Marble Queens and Painted Ladies: Women, Art, and Idealism in the Gilded Age

    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...

  • Napoleon and Italy

    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...

  • Reading Dante: Exploring Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love

    Dr. Joe Luzzi

    What makes Dante such a fascinating and essential author – and why is his classic from 700 years ago, The Divine Comedy, more relevant to our everyday lives than ever before? Join us for a truly unique celebration of Dante and his work, as Joseph Luzzi, award-winning Dante scholar ...

  • Renaissance Venetian Women

    Dr. Paolo Alei

    Portraits of Women in Renaissance Venice are evasive to interpretation. Most of them are women with no specific identities. This hermeneutic indeterminacy has led art historians to speculate whether they are courtesans, brides, or demonstration pieces of “la bella pittura” (beauti...

  • The Doges that Shaped Venice

    Dr. Dennis Romano

  • Learn my Language: Dialogue between Viewer and Art in the Renaissance

    Dr. John Paoletti

    Renaissance art is made to communicate ideas – social, political, religious, historical – to the viewer.  Of course, that raises issues of who is talking to whom and how should that address be structured.  That means that the intended viewer played (and still plays) a critical ...

  • Tending to Hearth and Home: The Visual Culture of Housework in Renaissance Italy

    Dr. Sally Cornelison

    Today, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, food processors, and other appliances simplify the ever-present need to clean house and put food on the table, among other chores. This lecture explores moralizing and instructional treatises, paintings, prints, and the study of urban con...

  • Imitation Games, Then and Now: The Renaissance Roots of A.I.

    with Quentin Hardy

    Artificial Intelligence is powerful, futuristic, and a little scary. But away from the hype, it’s quite familiar, and closely tied to some of the most powerful themes and aspirations of the Renaissance: Imitation, perfection, classical learning and a new exploration of the wor...

  • Stigmata: The Art and Medicine of the Wounds of Christ

    Dr. Jeremy Wasser

    A central tenet of the Christian faith is that Jesus was crucified by the Romans and died on the cross at Golgotha. The art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance is replete with representations of Christ’s Passion prior to the crucifixion and of Christ crucified including works by...

  • The Re-Birth of Cities in Medieval Europe

    Dr. Fabrizio Ricciardelli

    In Europe city-states developed following diverse origins. There were: 1) ancient roman cities; 2) new cities founded near castles; 3) new cities founded near monasteries; 4) cities built in hostile but naturally protected environment (like Venice); 5) settlements estab...