Sheri Shaneyfelt

Sheri Shaneyfelt is an art historian of the Italian Renaissance and Principal Senior Lecturer in Renaissance art at Vanderbilt University, where she is also Director of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies for the History of Art and Architecture department and Director of Vanderbilt’s Master’s program in Liberal Arts and Science. A triple-award-winning lecturer, she also teaches courses in Northern European Renaissance and Baroque art at Vanderbilt. She earned her Ph.D. at Indiana University-Bloomington, with an M.A. from Vanderbilt, both in the History of Art, and an undergraduate B.S. in Biology from Centre College. Professor Shaneyfelt specializes in Central Italian art, particularly that of Umbria and Tuscany. She lived and worked in Italy for long periods of time teaching for study-abroad programs in Perugia and Florence. Her research has been published in top art-historical journals and in her book Renaissance Painting in Perugia: Perugino, Raphael, and their Circles (Cambridge, 2023). A seasoned Smithsonian Journeys expert, she has extensive experience in and loves leading groups and lecturing on site, and emphasizes the role of art and architecture in context. 

Allan Langdale

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.

Sara James

Sara N. James, Professor Emerita of Art History at Mary Baldwin University, combines her passion for art, architecture, and gardens with her sense of adventure and love of travel. She specializes in Italian Renaissance art with a particular passion for narrative fresco programs. However, over her 30-year teaching career, Sara has taught courses in Renaissance (Italian and Northern), Baroque, Greek, Roman, Medieval, and English art and architecture, as well as interdisciplinary honors courses. She also served as director of the Renaissance Studies Abroad Program, teaching students on site in Italy and Northern Europe. An avid gardener and garden lover, she is a certified Master Gardener and a member of the Garden Club of Virginia and the Garden Club of America. Her publications include two books: Signorelli and Fra Angelico at Orvieto: Liturgy, Poetry and a Vision of the End-time (Ashgate, 2003) and Art in England from the Saxons to the Tudors: 600-1600 (Oxbow/Casemate, 2016) and numerous chapters, articles, and reviews. Her frequent speaking engagements include the Renaissance Society of America, the College Art Association, the Chief Executives Organization, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Sara holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Virginia. She has spent three sabbaticals at the American Academy in Rome and one at the Paul Mellon Centre in London. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and currently serves on the faculty of the OLLI life learning program at the University of Virginia.

Allen James Fromherz

Dr. Allen Fromherz is a Professor of Mediterranean and Middle East History at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Dartmouth College in 2002 and received his PhD from St. Andrews University in Scotland in Medieval Islamic History in 2006. His first two books, The Almohads: the Rise of an Islamic Empire (IB Tauris) and Ibn Khaldun, Life and Times (Edinburgh University Press) examine the rise of empire in medieval North Africa and Iberia. Dr. Fromherz's book The Near West: North Africa and Europe (Edinburgh – 2016), examines the history of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish interactions across the Western Mediterranean, especially in Iberia, Morocco, Tunisia, and Italy. He is a Senior Fulbright Grantee to Spain (Fall 2022) and is completing a book on the life and times of Ibn al-Khatib (d. 1375 CE), a polymath and minister who wrote poetry for the Alhambra in Granada.  Before the Fulbright to Spain, Dr. Fromherz held several international fellowships from Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, and a senior humanities grant from NYU Abu Dhabi. He is also Co-Founder and Co-Editor of the Edinburgh Book Series on the Maghreb (North Africa). Dr. Fromherz leads studies abroad for his students at GSU, including the popular Marvels of Medieval Spain: the Culture and History of Muslims, Jews, and Christians and a Study Abroad to Italy. His regular classes on the Middle East, North Africa, Medieval Italy, Medieval Spain and the Mediterranean focus on encounters between Muslims, Jews, and Christians.

Gary Radke

Gary Radke served as Dean's Professor of the Humanities and professor of art history in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University. Upon joining the faculty in 1980, he promptly took over the Florence Graduate Program in Italian Renaissance Art and has since helped elevate it- and the department of Art & Music Histories in general- to international prominence. Radke is one of the world's leading experts on Italian Medieval and Renaissance art and architecture, with a special interest in 15th-century Florentine sculpture. Since 2001, Radke has served as a guest curator at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, where he organized a series of high-profile shows-and their respective exhibition catalogs- featuring works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, and other Italian Renaissance masters. Radke is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.