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 Museum, London.
I am particularly interested in the relationship between design and craftsmanship, the emergence of the architect as a professional figure, and the production of architectural knowledge. I am currently developing a project on antiquarianism in the early modern Mediterranean, exploring the intersection of architectural theory, cultural identity and exchanges between Europe and the Ottoman empire.
I teach at the University of Warwick and as Guest Professor at TU Wien, Vienna’s architecture school (2025). In addition to my research, I work as a curator, editor and translator, contributing translations to the catalogues of major exhibitions on Sebastiano del Piombo (2017), Titian (2020) and Michelangelo (2025). My research has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Warwick and the Warburg Institute.
Explore my digital exhibition
Beyond the Painter-Architect: Artists Reinventing Architecture in Renaissance Italy
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
Recent Activity
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)
Talk at Princeton University, Monday 24 March 2025. Find it here
Images top to bottom, left to right:
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
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