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, and the birth of antiquarianism.
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 2016). I was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick between 2018 and 2024, and I am now teaching undergraduate courses there. I also teach short courses at the Courtauld Institute in London, and this spring (2025) I am Guest Professor at TU Wien, Vienna’s architecture school.
See my Publications, Exhibitions, Translations and Teaching pages for more.
Future research plans include the publication of an article on the architectural imagination of painters and sculptors in Northern Italy and two book projects. The first, entitled “Architecture, Design and Craft in Italy, c. 1300- c.1550” explores the relationship between design and craftsmanship in connection with the emergence of the architect as a professional figure. The second book, provisionally entitled “Ottoman Encounters and the Production of Architectural Knowledge in Early Modern Italy,” investigates how diverse individuals, from merchants and craftsmen to scholars, negotiated the classical architectural heritage in contested territories of the Adriatic and Asia Minor.
I sit on the Board of Directors of the Italian Art Society (IAS) as Vice President for Program Coordination and Chair of the Program Committee, and am an active member of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB), for which I co-convene the Architectural History Seminar.
Find me on LinkedIn, Academia and Humanities Commons
Contact: art.history@livialupi.com