Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

The Accademia Gallery in Venice houses the world’s most important collection of Venetian Renaissance paintings, including masterpieces by Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Join Dr. Rocky for this webinar as explores the gems from this magnificent...

Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

In 2008, the Italian government purchased a small wooden “Crucifix” loosely attributed to Michelangelo from a private antique dealer for $4.2 million. A few years later, the Minister of Culture who authorized the purchase was subject to an official criminal investigation for w...

Of the three major artistic disciplines, sculpture was the first to have its Renaissance. Florentine sculptors such as Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio and Michelangelo would produce sculptures that, at first, sought to imitate ancient Greco-Roman art, but then began to try to s...

In early years of art appreciation, while judging Kyoto’s International Film Festival, I asked Oscar-winning cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro, whom he favored as a painter. Storaro inquired if I had seen, what he deemed as the narrative genesis of film in early modern history, Giotto’s fresco cy...

The Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, better known simply as the “Frari,” is one of Venice’s largest churches and home to some of the greatest art treasures of the Renaissance. Whether it’s altarpieces by Titian and Bellini or sculptures by Donatello and Canova, the Frari has something ...

Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

While Italy was Leonardo’s home for most of his life, more than half of his surviving masterpieces are scattered in various museums throughout the world. Join Dr. Rocky for this webinar as he examines those paintings by Leonardo da Vinci located in museums outside Italy.

Dr. William E. Wallace

Professor Wallace will introduce his new book which relates the compelling story of a forty-year rivalry between the two most celebrated artists of their time: Michelangelo and Titian. This is the story about the entwined lives of two artists who were more attentive and ...

Dr. Fabirzio Ricciardelli

Family structures were central to social life in Renaissance Florence. Florentine society revolved around patriarchal households, where marriage alliances, kinship ties, and lineage shaped social status and economic security. Women were primarily defined through their r...

Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

While Florence is not as celebrated for its mosaics as Ravenna or Venice, the mosaic cycle on the vault of Florence Baptistry is one of the most beautiful and extensive in all of Italy. Join Dr. Rocky for this free webinar as he takes you under a golden sky to explore the glit...

Reading Between the Brushstrokes: Imagery and Meaning in Italian Renaissance Painting

Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

While famous masterpieces such as the "Mona Lisa,” the “Birth of Venus,” and the “Sistine Chapel, Ceiling” draw massive crowds in Italy, most Italian Renaissance paintings in US museums are ...

Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

From the indigenous Sicels to the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, French and finally the Spanish, for the last 3,000 years, Sicily has been a crossroads of cultures and civilizations. This rich and multi-layered history permeates every aspect...