Inside Sicily

Dr. Andrew Becker was born in Burma (Myanmar), spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and has continued to travel ever since—mostly Europe and Asia.  He has been lecturing in Italy since 1997, first as a professor teaching students abroad, then since 2015 with Smithsonian Journeys.  Andy is an associate professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at Virginia Tech (with stints teaching in Switzerland and London), and has won numerous local and national awards for teaching. He earned a BA from the University of Michigan, a master’s from Cambridge University, and a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Andy’s scholarly specialties are ancient: specifically the cultures, literatures, and languages of Ancient Rome and Greece, as well as the constant, recurring re-engagement of many later civilizations with Ancient Rome and Greece.

Rebecca K. Schindler is Professor of Classical Studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. She teaches courses in Classical art and archaeology, Latin, Greek and Roman Mythology, and Classical literature. Rebecca has chaired the Department of Classical Studies at DePauw University and has served as the co-editor of the book reviews for The American Journal of Archaeology. Her research interests include the archaeology of Greek colonization in South Italy and Sicily, Greek religion, applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in archaeology, and the ethics of cultural heritage. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College in Classical and Near Eastern Art and Archaeology and her PhD from the University of Michigan in Classical Art and Archaeology. She has also studied at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens and worked as a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome. Rebecca's archaeological field experience includes projects in Tunisia, Cyprus, Turkey, and Italy. Since 2015 she has been working with Umbra Institute in Perugia on a field project at Castiglione del Lago on Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, Italy. She is finishing a book on sanctuaries of Aphrodite in Italy and Sicily. She currently serves as the president of the Central Indiana Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the co-PI of the Collaboratory for GIS and Mediterranean Archaeology. Outside of her professional life, Rebecca is passionate about Italian food and enjoys exploring traditional markets and learning new recipes.

Veronica Kalas is an art historian and archaeologist with special expertise in the ancient through medieval periods of the Mediterranean world, including southern Italy, Sicily, Greece, Turkey, and Tunisia. She earned her MA and PhD in art history and archaeology from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and her BA in classical archaeology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her doctoral research focused on the art, architecture, and society of Byzantine Cappadocia, a volcanic region located in central Turkey about which she has published extensively.

Veronica’s work has been supported by the American Research Institute in Turkey, the Program in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University, and Dumbarton Oaks Research Libraries and Collections in Washington, D.C. She has taught courses on a variety of topics—including early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art; ancient Greek and Roman art; and architectural history—at the University of Michigan, Albion College, Wayne State University, and the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She is very interested in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approaches to the history of art and archaeology. She has collaborated with museums on blockbuster exhibitions and currently teaches traveling study abroad courses. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge with the general public by working on educational programs for the History Channel, the Smithsonian Channel, and TED-Ed, and by lecturing widely in the Mediterranean region on cultural heritage and archaeological study tours.

Hipólito Rafael Chacón is the Bruce and Suzanne Crocker Director of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture and a professor of art history and criticism at the University of Montana-Missoula. During more than 30 years of teaching, he has lectured on a broad range of subjects, from the Renaissance to Ancient Egyptian art, to the influence of Islamic art on southern Europe during the Middle Ages. He received his PhD in art history with honors from the University of Chicago, having been awarded numerous research fellowships to study in Europe and the Mediterranean basin, including an award from the Spanish Ministry of Culture for his dissertation on Michelangelism in Renaissance art. Rafael has written on a range of topics related to Renaissance and baroque art, both in Europe and in the Americas, most recently focusing on revival-style architecture in the U.S. during the late 19th century. He has been awarded the top national and international prizes for his research in the field of vexillology, or flag studies. Rafael has been an expert for many Smithsonian Journeys programs and has twice walked the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route across France and Spain.

Luca Zavagno is an associate professor in the Department of History and the Department of Archaeology at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He has authored many articles and essays on early medieval and Byzantine Mediterranean, covering topics such as urbanism, Cyprus from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, and the history of cross-cultural encounters in the medieval and early modern eras.

A graduate of the University of Venice, Luca obtained his PhD at the University of Birmingham with a dissertation on the society, economics, and politics of Byzantine cities in the early Middle Ages. He was twice awarded the Dumbarton Oaks Summer Fellowship as well as the prestigious Stanley Seeger Fellowship of the Hellenic Studies Center at Princeton University. He was also recently appointed one of Notre Dame University’s Andrew Mellon Fellows.

Joanne Ferraro is the Albert W. Johnson Distinguished Professor of History Emerita at San Diego State University. Her courses have covered the ancient Greek and Roman world as well as medieval, Renaissance, and early modern northern and southern Europe. She is especially interested in Europe’s cross-cultural and global connections with greater Asia and the Americas. Joanne has published books with Cambridge, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins University presses with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. She is the general editor of Bloomsbury Academic’s six-volume Cultural History of Marriage from Antiquity to the Present. Her latest book, The Renaissance and the Wider World, surveys the history of Europe between 1250 and 1600, an era of profound importance and renowned cultural achievement. Joanne has lectured for Smithsonian Journeys for the past decade, has lived and traveled in Europe for extensive periods, and is an enthusiast of the continent’s rich history and culture.

Allan Langdale grew up on Vancouver Island wondering what the rest of the world was like and has spent much of his adult life finding out. Allan is an art and architectural historian, photographer, filmmaker, and travel writer who received his Ph.D. in art history from UC Santa Barbara. He has taught courses in Italian Renaissance art, Greek, Roman, Byzantine (including Georgian and Armenian architecture), and Indian and Islamic art and architecture. He currently teaches art history at UC Santa Cruz as a lecturer.

Along with several articles, Allan wrote the definitive architectural field guide to the little-known region of Turkish Cyprus, In a Contested Realm (2012) and also made the award-winning documentary film The Stones of Famagusta: the Story of a Forgotten City (2008). His travel books include Palermo: Travels in the City of Happiness (2015) and The Hippodrome of Istanbul / Constantinople: An Illustrated Handbook of its History (2019).

A popular Smithsonian Expert, Allan has traveled extensively in the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea region, the Middle East—including Jordan and Egypt—and India.

Natalie Latteri holds a B.A. in History from the University of California at Davis, a M.A. in History from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in History with an emphasis in medieval European interfaith relations from the University of New Mexico. Her areas of specialization include Jewish and Christian religious history and she has extensive training in biblical and medieval Hebrew as well as ancient and medieval Latin, honed during her doctoral research at the archives of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. 

Natalie has been interested in world and religious history since childhood, when she developed a penchant for listening to her two grandfathers’ stories of their service in the Second World War. She has conducted research and traveled through England, Germany, Hungary, France, Basque Country, Mexico, and Italy, and is hoping to explore Northern Africa and East Asia in the near future.  

She currently teaches a variety of Humanities, History, and Religious Studies Courses—including Comparative Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Civilizations, Comparative Mythology, Fairytales and Folklore, and Jewish-Christian Relations—at Foothill College in California’s Silicon Valley and at the University of San Francisco. Her most recent research focuses on global conspiracy theories and their societal impact.  

Paolo Squatriti is professor of history and Italian at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and also teaches in the university’s Program in the Environment. Though he was born and grew up in Rome, Paolo studied history at Boston College and received a PhD in medieval European history from the University of Virginia. While he has lived and taught in a variety of places, he currently spends most of his time in Ann Arbor, teaching and researching medieval and environmental history. He has produced numerous articles, translations, and books; the paperback version of his most recent book, Weeds and the Carolingians: Empire, Nature and Culture in Carolingian Europe, AD 750-900, was released in 2024. Over the past half-century, Paolo has crisscrossed the Mediterranean region on foot, by plane, and by other forms of transport, and he looks forward to sharing his unique insights on the area’s history and natural heritage.

Sara N. James combines her passion for art, architecture, archaeology, gardens, and photography with her sense of adventure, love of travel, and enjoyment of people. She specializes in Italian Renaissance art with a particular passion for narrative fresco and stained-glass programs, but over her 30-year teaching career, Sara taught courses in Renaissance (Italian and Northern), Baroque, Greek, Roman, Medieval, and English art and architecture, as well as interdisciplinary honors courses. She is Professor Emerita of Art History at Mary Baldwin University, where she also served as director of the Renaissance Studies Abroad Program, teaching students on site in Italy and Northern Europe. In addition to teaching, she is a respected scholar and author of three books: The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Medieval Italy: Art, Devotion, and Liturgy in Orvieto (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Art in England from the Saxons to the Tudors: 600-1600 (Oxbow/Casemate, 2016) ; and Signorelli and Fra Angelico at Orvieto: Liturgy, Poetry and a Vision of the End-time (Ashgate, 2003), as well as numerous chapters, articles, and book reviews. Her speaking engagements include the Renaissance Society of America, the College Art Association, the Chief Executives Organization, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Chrysler Museum. Sara holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Virginia and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. She has spent three sabbaticals at the American Academy in Rome and one at the Paul Mellon Centre in London. An avid gardener and garden lover, Sara is a certified Master Gardener as well as a member of the Garden Club of Virginia, which has awarded her for her daffodils, and the Garden Club of America, which has awarded her for her photography.