Italy's Amalfi Coast: A One-Week Stay in Vietri sul Mare

Carrie Weaver is a Mediterranean archaeologist and research affiliate of the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and has been teaching, writing, and researching for over 15 years. Her area of specialization is the art, architecture, and archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean world, with an emphasis on funerary art and architecture, burial practices, and the analysis of human bone. She has excavated in Pompeii and Sicily, and analyzed human remains from Rome, Sicily, Turkey, and the UK. Carrie is the author of The Bioarchaeology of Classical Kamarina: Life and Death in Greek Sicily (University Press of Florida, 2015) and Marginalised Populations in the Ancient Greek World: The Bioarchaeology of the Other (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), and the co-editor of The Ancient Art of Transformation: Case Studies from Mediterranean Contexts (Oxbow Books, 2019).

Sheri Shaneyfelt is an art historian of the Italian Renaissance and a professor 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 the master’s program in liberal arts and science. An award-winning lecturer, Sheri also teaches courses in Northern European Renaissance and baroque art at Vanderbilt. She earned her PhD at Indiana University-Bloomington, with a master’s from Vanderbilt, both in the history of art. Sheri 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 history journals and in her book Renaissance Painting in Perugia: Perugino, Raphael, and their Circles. A seasoned Smithsonian Journeys expert, Sheri loves leading groups and lecturing on site, and emphasizes the role of art and architecture in context. 

Holly Flora is a professor of art history at Tulane University and a specialist in Italian medieval and early Renaissance art. Her research focuses on the intersection of art, devotion, and sensory experience, with particular expertise in Franciscan visual culture and artists such as Cimabue and Giotto. A former curator at the Museum of Biblical Art and Mellon Fellow at The Frick Collection in New York City, she has extensive experience bringing works of art to life for broad audiences.

Holly has lectured widely at museums and universities across the United States and Europe, including the Louvre, and spent over two decades leading tours and teaching in museum settings such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters. She has taught in Siena, Italy, since 2009 and has directed Tulane’s Summer in Italy program since 2017, guiding participants through the art and history of cities such as Florence, Rome, and Siena. Her engaging approach connects historical works of art to their original cultural and spiritual contexts.

David A. Guinee teaches at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where he is the Edwin Minar Professor of Classical Studies. He coordinates the Latin program at DePauw University and teaches courses in Latin and Greek at all levels and periods, with courses ranging from Homeric Greek to Late Antique and Medieval Latin, as well as a wide range of courses in Classics in translation, including Greek and Roman Mythology, Greek and Roman Law, Roman Civilization, the Age of Augustus, and the Legacies of Constantine. From 2009 to 2012 Dave served as DePauw's Faculty Development Coordinator. He earned his BA in Classical Languages at Carleton College and his PhD in Classical Philology at the University of Michigan. Dave's research is focused on Latin poetry, particularly epic after Vergil. He has been an active participant with the Center for Hellenic Studies' Sunoikisis project, developing collaborative inter-institution courses in Greek and Latin literature, and has been a CHS Sunoikisis Fellow for Curricular Development. He has led many student study tours through Italy and has lived in Rome and Siena, where he served as a Visiting Faculty member for the AHA International Study Program. In addition to Classics, Dave enjoys flyfishing and playing bluegrass 5-string banjo.

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). 

Dr. Ross King is the bestselling author of books on Italian and French art and history, including Brunelleschi's Dome (2000), Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (2002), and Leonardo and The Last Supper (2012). His study of the origins of French Impressionism, The Judgment of Paris, was published in 2006, and Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies in 2016. He is the co-author with Anja Grebe of Florence: The Paintings & Frescoes, 1250-1743 (2015), the most comprehensive book ever undertaken on the art of Florence. His current project is a two-volume history of Italy, The Shortest History of Ancient Romeand The Shortest History of Italy, covering some 3,000 years of history from Romulus and Remus to the present.

Ross has also appeared in a number of television documentaries, such as The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance (PBS, 2003), Raphael: A Mortal God (BBC, 2004), The Great Cathedral Mystery (Nova, 2014), Florence's Invisible City (BBC, 2016), and, most recently, Ken Burns's Leonardo da Vinci (2024).

Ross serves on the Council of Academic Advisors for Friends of Florence, a fundraising charity ensuring the survival of Florence's art and architectural treasures. He has participated in numerous Friends of Florence tours throughout Italy and Sicily, and is a regular participant in Italian Renaissance seminars at the Aspen Institute, including programs on Giotto, St. Francis, and Dante. He has lectured in many American museums, including the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frick Collection, and the National Gallery of Art. When not traveling for work or pleasure, Ross lives near Oxford, England, with his wife Melanie.

Dr. Arianna Soldati is a volcanologist and science communicator who has been fascinated with volcanoes since early childhood. She is originally from Italy, and indeed the very first volcano she climbed is Mt Vesuvius, which froze Pompeii and Herculaneum in time during its infamous 79 AD eruption. With a focus on the dynamics of lava flows and their interaction with the built environment, her work today takes her to field sites all over the world: from Hawaii to Iceland, from La Réunion to La Palma, and from Costa Rica to New Zealand. Arianna was selected as the 2023-2024 Geological Society of America’s Science Communication Fellow. In that role, she made the latest geological discoveries published in academic journals accessible to the general public. She has delivered over 50 public lectures, led countless science engagement activities, and funded her own traveling outreach program. Currently, Arianna is an assistant professor at North Carolina State University.

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.

Valerie Hedquist is a professor of art history at the University of Montana. She earned her PhD with honors at the University of Kansas and has been teaching and writing for nearly 30 years. Her research focuses on the arts of the 17th and 18th centuries and includes articles on the religious paintings of Rembrandt and Vermeer. Of special interest is the influence of Italian cultural attitudes on the visual output of these Dutch artists and others. Her book on the changing reception and meaning of Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy was published in summer 2019.