Highlights of Italy

Vivien Green Fryd, Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984 and Professor Emerita in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Vanderbilt University, is the author of Art and Empire: The Politics of Ethnicity in the U.S. Capitol, 1815-1860 (1992); Art and the Crisis of Marriage: Georgia O’Keeffe and Edward Hopper (2003); and Against Our Will: Sexual Trauma in American Art Since 1970 (2019). She has taught courses on Impressionism, Nineteenth-Century European Art, Twentieth-Century European Art, and American Art. She was the Terra Visiting Professor at the John F. Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien, Freie Universität, Berlin, fall 2012, where she began research for another book about her uncle who left Germany because of the Holocaust and became a photojournalist: Henry Ries’ Photographs of Iconic Berlin Monuments and Sites, 1946-2004. She has traveled to Italy several times to explore the artwork of the country.

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.  

Rebecca Darley is a historian and writer who has traveled the world studying the eastern Mediterranean and the western Indian Ocean in ancient and medieval times. Since completing her doctorate in Byzantine studies at the University of Birmingham, she has taught at King’s College London; Birkbeck, University of London; and the University of Leeds. She is currently a senior research fellow at Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilization in Istanbul.  Rebecca has won numerous awards for her teaching as well as research grants to study at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., and to undertake research in India and Sri Lanka.

As part of her research, Rebecca has been fortunate to spend considerable time in Italy, Turkey and Greece, and to visit Jordan, Israel and northern Europe. She was part of a Getty program dedicated to the art and material culture of the Crusades and served as a lecturer for the John Hall Venice course. She has a long history of working with museums to curate or consult on exhibitions of ancient material, especially coins. A scholar of the Byzantine Empire, Rebecca is fascinated by places like northeastern Italy, Sicily, and the Adriatic coast, where the empire met other influences, creating unique expressions of Mediterranean culture steeped in millennia of shared traditions and competing identities. She has presented her research globally and published internationally in fields ranging from archaeology and classics to museology.

Rebecca is drawn to the power of the past to help us connect with places and people, to make sense of the world, and to relate to different lives and cultures. The opportunity to engage directly with sites, objects, and landscapes and to think with other interested people about the everyday minutiae and the huge connecting forces of history is her greatest passion.

Erik Gustafson is an architectural historian of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world, whose interests span from the ancient world into the early modern period. He has lived in Italy, France, and Egypt, and has traveled extensively in northern Europe, Iberia, and the eastern Mediterranean. Erik’s academic work addresses how specific sites were historically understood in light of broad intellectual and visual traditions. His current book project, Building Saint Francis, considers how the Franciscan order used architecture to shape and channel the legacy of their founder in the centuries after his death. While completing his PhD on the Franciscan architecture of Tuscany at New York University, he spent several years living in Florence and Rome. Erik has taught a variety of courses on art and architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, Fordham University, Washington & Lee University, and George Mason University. He has published on Italian, Spanish, and French medieval architecture as well as Mamluk architecture in Cairo, and is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

Bernard Ohanian, a former deputy editor of National Geographic magazine, has been besotted with Italy since he first lived on the shores of Lake Garda as an exchange student in high school. A fluent Italian speaker, he’s the author of A Day in the Life of Italy and the founder of the Italian language version of National Geographic magazine. He also served as the RKO Radio correspondent in Rome; the San Francisco correspondent for Reporter, an Italian daily newspaper; the U.S. sports correspondent for Rome’s RadioIn; and an editor/translator for the Rome-based Inter Press Service. He contributed an essay, in Italian, to Patria 1967-1977, an account of a pivotal moment in Italian history that was compiled and edited by noted Italian journalist Enrico Deaglio.

Bernard holds a BA in linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. He finds boundless pleasure in sharing his love for, and knowledge of, the culture, geography, and history of the peninsula (and islands) that Italians not so modestly—but quite accurately—call “the beautiful country.” 

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.

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.

Theresa Flanigan is a historian of late medieval and Renaissance art and architecture, primarily in Italy, where she lived and studied for several years, including as a fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. While studying in Florence as an architecture student, she fell in love with Italian language, art, and culture and has immersed herself in researching, teaching, and sharing her knowledge about Italy ever since. She received a master’s in art history from Syracuse University’s Florence program, and a PhD from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.

Theresa is assistant professor and graduate coordinator of art history at Texas Tech University. She taught previously at the University at Albany (SUNY), New York University, Syracuse University, and elsewhere. She authored the book The Ponte Vecchio: Architecture, Politics, and Civic Identity in Late Medieval Florence, and co-edited Artistic Encounters in Trecento Italy. Theresa has also published on Florentine urban planning, emotional expression in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Giotto’s paintings in Assisi and Padua, and on artworks by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, and others. Her current research explores the influence of medical science on early Renaissance naturalism. As an educator, Theresa has led numerous study abroad trips to Italy and lectured in museums and at historical sites in Texas, New York, and throughout Italy.

Lisa Passaglia Bauman is an art historian of the Italian Renaissance and professor of art history at George Mason University in Virginia. A recipient of the university’s Teaching Excellence Award, she is consistently praised for her ability to turn students’ required course in the arts into one of their favorite experiences at the university. She has served as the academic director for George Mason’s semester abroad program in Florence, Italy, and at Oxford University in England, and she currently runs two study abroad programs for the university: Art and Memory in Rome and Florence, a summer program that explores the classical world of ancient Rome and its rebirth in the Renaissance; and From Roman to Parisian: Shaping the Urban Experience in France from Antiquity to the Modern Period, a winter course in urban design.

Before coming to George Mason, Lisa worked in the Department of Museum Education at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she developed and presented gallery walks and public lectures on the permanent collection and special exhibitions.  Her years of lecturing in front of the artwork have informed her teaching as she strives to engage her students more intimately with the object, its history, and its cultural context. 

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.

Kimberly Dennis is Professor of Art History and Director of the Office of External Fellowships and Scholarships at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. She earned her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focusing on the architectural and urban history of Rome during the Counter Reformation. Kim’s primary teaching areas are European Renaissance and Baroque art history, with an emphasis on women’s history. She offers seminars on topics ranging from Roman Palaces to the Dutch Golden Age. Kim has been recognized with Rollins’ highest teaching awards, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation. Her research explores the art and architectural patronage of Roman noblewomen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She is currently at work on two projects, Donna Olimpia: Papal Politics and the Patronage of Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilj, and Ut Pictura Poesis: Ancestry and Lineage in Scenes of the Aeneid in Pietro da Cortona's Galleria in Palazzo Pamphilj (with Gretchen Meyers, PhD, Franklin & Marshall College). 

Pedar W. Foss is Professor of Classical Studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where he has worked since 1999. As Dean of Academic Life from 2009-13, his duties included oversight of student advising, academic support, off-campus and service learning, and career services. As a teacher, he conducts courses in Latin, ancient history and literature, and art and archaeology. He received his B.A. in Chemistry and Classics from Gustavus Adolphus College, and his Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; he subsequently taught at the University of Cincinnati and at Stanford. Dr. Foss has edited for the Journal of Roman Archaeology, was co-editor of the book reviews for the American Journal of Archaeology, and co-edited the volume The World of Pompeii (Routledge 2007). He has now published Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius (Routledge 2022), a complete re-assessment of the AD 79 disaster.  His research centers on the relationships between ancient peoples and their landscapes. He has lived, led tours, and studied throughout the Mediterranean, working at such sites as Kavousi and Corinth (Greece), Carthage (Tunisia), Troy, Hacımusalar, and Çaltılar (Turkey), Pompeii, Rieti, and Castiglione del Lago (Italy). He maintains a professional blog at: http://quemdixerechaos.com.

Gary Radke is passionate about Italy. He first went to Florence as an undergraduate and ended up directing Syracuse University’s renowned Florence Graduate Program in Renaissance Art for 35 years.  He invites Smithsonian guests to join him in thinking about and enjoying Italy’s cultural treasures in new ways, tapping into his decades of experience studying and teaching Italian Renaissance art.

Radke is one of the world’s leading experts on Italian medieval and Renaissance art.  He curated major loan exhibitions throughout the United States on Italian Renaissance sculptors Lorenzo Ghiberti, Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.  His widely distributed college textbook on Italian Renaissance art, co-authored with John Paoletti, has appeared in four editions and in Spanish and Chinese translations. 

Gary is also past president of the Italian Art Society and a fellow of the American Academy in Rome. He currently directs The Caravaggio Illumination Project, an international, multidisciplinary research and exhibition effort devoted to evaluating and reconstructing the original lighting conditions under which the dramatic religious works of renowned Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) were experienced during his lifetime.

In retirement from Syracuse University Professor Radke and his wife have settled into an historic home in Savannah, Georgia, where Gary advocates for historic preservation and enjoys kayaking along the Georgia coast.