I am a historian of art and architecture of early modern Europe. My research focuses on the intersection of artistic and architectural practice, especially in Italy, c. 1300 – c. 1500.

This is the subject of my first book, Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy, and Beyond the Painter-Architect, my digital exhibition with the Sir John Soane’s Museum.

I am particularly interested in the relationship between design and craft, the emergence of the architect as a new professional, and the production of artistic and architectural knowledge.

I explore these issues both within Italy and in terms of its exchanges with wider Europe and the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

In addition to my research, I work as a curator, editor and translator. My research has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Warwick and the Warburg Institute.

COMING SOON

Digital Exhibition

Sir John Soane’s Museum

Find out more on my Exhibitions page.

Beyond the Painter-Architect

Exploring Art and Architecture as Integrated Practices I, II and III

Sponsored by the European Architectural History Network

Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Boston (20-22 March 2025)



Images top to bottom, left to right:

Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501), Hoeing machine (top), and Windass with double-pulley (bottom), Opusculum de architectura, c. 1475. London, The British Museum, ms. 197.b.21, fol. 5r. © The Trustees of the British Museum

North Italian draughtsman, Chariots and console brackets, North Italian Album, SM 122/33, c. 1500, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London © Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. Photograph by Ardon Bar-Hama

Michelangelo, Moses (for the tomb of Julius II), 1513-1515, completed and installed 1545. San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. Wikimedia Commons

Fra Damiano Zambelli (Damiano da Bergamo), Annunciation, 1536. San Pietro, Perugia. Wood intarsia. Wikimedia Commons

Pesellino, Triumph of David, detail, 1445-55. National Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons

Altichiero da Zevio, Baptism of King Sevius and Martyrdom of St George, 1384. Oratory of St George, Padua. Wikimedia Commons

Michelangelo, copy after the Codex Coner, inv. 1859-6-25-560r (W18r, Corpus 516r), British Museum, London. Wikimedia Commons

Andrea del Verrocchio and workshop (attr.), Virgin Adoring the Infant Christ (Ruskin Madonna), National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1470–1475. Wikimedia Commons

Titian: Love, Desire, Death. Exhibition catalogue, National Gallery, London and Yale University Press

Benozzo Gozzoli, Virgin and Child Enthroned, 1461-62. National Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons