Renaissance noblewomen were responsible for maintaining the health and beauty of their families and themselves. Armed with knowledge passed down among women and assisted by servants, the Duchesses Caterina Cibo and Caterina Sforza experimented with herbs, oils, food and minerals to concoct new remedies. In this talk we'll discuss how they created potions and balms and passed down their knowledge to future generations.

Dr. Meghan Callahan has lived and worked in London since 2006. Like Rocky, she earned her Master’s degree in Art History from Syracuse University as a Florence Fellow. She has a Ph.D. in Art History from Rutgers University. Meghan is the Assistant Director for Teaching and Learning at Syracuse University London, where she has taught art history and history classes on Italian Art in London and the UK; Women and Art: London and UK; and Underground London.

She worked on the reinstallation of the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and then with the sculpture dealer Patricia Wengraf. Meghan has published various articles and essays on the architectural patronage of the 16th-century mystic nun Sister Domenica da Paradiso, miraculous paintings in Renaissance Florence, and Italian Renaissance and Baroque sculpture.