Why Make an Image Database? Digital Tools and New Perspectives in Art History"
11 DECEMBER 2020
10am US Central / 11am US Eastern / 5pm Italy
CAROLINE BRUZELIUS (Duke University) and PAOLA VITOLO (University "Federico II" in Naples)
Wars, natural disasters, urban expansion, and changes in taste have transformed the medieval monuments of South Italy, their interior decoration, and their relationship to the landscape. The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database was created to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the appearance and meaning of buildings and their decoration over time, prior to transformation or destruction. The database collects and makes accessible historic images in order to enable scholars and the public to engage with the multiple lives of a building or a city, and to generate deeper knowledge about the historic patrimony of South Italy. The images in the database are culled from libraries, archives, museums, and publications and are made available on the Web and as an App with large and small-scale maps.
Caroline Bruzelius (Ph.D., Yale University) is Professor Emerita of medieval architecture, urbanism and sculpture in France and Italy. She is a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Society of Antiquaries, London. From 1994 to 1998 she was Director of the American Academy in Rome. She has received numerous grants and awards, including the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. In 2014 she published Preaching, Building and Burying: Friars in the Medieval City (Yale University Press). Her book, The Stones of Naples: Church Building in the Angevin Kingdom, was published in 2004 (Italian ed., 2005). She has founded several important Digital Humanities initiatives: The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database, The Wired! Group at Duke University, and Visualizing Venice.
Paola Vitolo is Historian of Medieval Art at the University of "Federico II" in Naples (Italy). She received her Ph.D. in 2007 with a dissertation on the Incoronata in Naples and the patronage of Queen Joanna I of Anjou. She has been awarded fellowships and travel grants from various international institutions, including the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, The Warburg Institute in London, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) at the Universität der Künste, Berlin. Her research, focused on medieval art and patronage in the Angevin and Aragonese Kingdom of Sicily, on the reuse and reinterpretation of medieval works of art, has been published in specialized journals, books and has been presented at conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad. She collaborates with The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database project since its beginning in 2011.
The lecture will be held on Zoom. After downloading Zoom from www.zoom.us, join us through the direct link (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88623624874?pwd=MzNyTk1jZkpKSEphRitaWU1yQ2dQQT09) or by entering the Meeting ID: 886 2362 4874 and the Passcode: bosco
This presentation will last around 30 minutes, and will be followed by questions and discussion.