I am a historian of early modern art and architecture, working as a researcher, author, curator, editor and translator.
My research focuses on the intersection of artistic and architectural practice in Europe, especially Italy. In particular, I explore the communicative powers of structure and ornament, strategies of architectural representation, the relationship between design and craft, the emergence of the architect as a professional figure, the production of artistic and architectural knowledge, the birth of antiquarianism, and the interaction between architecture and the development of scientific methods.
I examine these issues within the Italian context and in terms of Italy’s exchanges with Northern Europe and the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.
I was educated at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (MA 2012) and the University of York (BA 2011, AHRC-funded PhD 2017).
I was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick (2018 – 2024), and I am now teaching undergraduate courses there. I also teach short courses at the Courtauld Institute in London, and in spring 2025 I was Guest Lecturer in Vienna’s school of architecture at TU Wien. In autumn 2025, I joined the editorial board of Open Access online journal Architectural Histories.
See my Publications, Exhibitions, Translations and Teaching pages for more.
Publications currently in preparation include a special collection of articles for DMJournal (including my article on the architectural imagination of painters and sculptors in Northern Italy) and a book chapter for the second volume of the series Architecturae Pictae (Brepols).
I am now working on a project exploring the development of architectural practice as an epistemic tool with reverberations on antiquarianism and scientific methodologies in early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
I am an active member of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB), for which I co-convene the Architectural History Seminar, and volunteered in a variety of roles for the Italian Art Society (IAS) between 2016 and 2026, including as Newsletter Editor (2020-2023) and as Vice President for Program Coordination and Chair of the Program Committee (2025-2026).
Find me on LinkedIn, Academia and Humanities Commons
Contact: art.history@livialupi.com