From your base in seaside Polignano a Mare, set out to discover the treasures of Italy’s “heel,” from its unique trulli houses and medieval hill towns to its rich culinary traditions.
Italy’s Apulia: A One-Week Stay in Polignano a Mare
9 days from $4,690
From your base in seaside Polignano a Mare, set out to discover the treasures of Italy’s “heel,” from its unique trulli houses and medieval hill towns to its rich culinary traditions.
Experts
Ross King
Dr. Ross King is the best-selling author of books on Italian, French and Canadian art and history. Among his books are 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 Judgement of Paris, was published in 2006. He has also published a biography of Niccolò Machiavelli and edited a collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s fables, jokes, and riddles. He is the co-author with Anja Grebe of Florence: The Paintings & Frescoes, 1250-1743 (2015), the most comprehensive (and probably the heaviest) book ever undertaken on the art of Florence.
His current project is a two-volume history of Italy, The Shortest History of Ancient Rome and The Shortest History of Italy, covering some 3,000 years of history from Romulus and Remus to the present.
Ross serves on the Council of Academic Advisors for Friends of Florence, the fund-raising charity ensuring the survival of Florence’s art and architectural treasures. He has participated in numerous Friends of Florence study tours throughout Italy, including in Rome, Assisi, and Milan. He is a regular participant in the Italian Renaissance seminars at the Aspen Institute, including programmes on Giotto, St. Francis, and Dante. He has 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), and Florence’s Invisible City (BBC, 2016).
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, he lives near Oxford, in England, with his wife Melanie.
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.
Carrie Weaver
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).
Ashley Elston
Ashley Elston is an art historian who specializes in religious art and architecture of the pre-and early modern Mediterranean, particularly Italy. She is Associate Professor of Art History and Director of Visual Arts at Berea College, where she teaches a variety of courses on European art from the ancient world to the 19th century. She discovered her love of Italian art and culture as an undergraduate working on a degree in history and medieval studies at St. Olaf College when she participated in a study abroad course in Rome. She went on to complete an M.A. and Ph.D. in art history at the University of Kansas. A Fulbright grant allowed her to live in Italy while conducting her doctoral research in churches, archives, and museums, and her work has also been supported by competitive grants from the Renaissance Society of America and the Southeastern College Art Conference. Ashley’s research interests focus on the history of ritual and religious art, the theological meanings and optical effects of different artistic materials, and American exhibitions of early modern art. She co-edited a book titled Hybridity in Early Modern Art and has published in Gesta (the journal of the International Center of Medieval Art) and a volume from Cambridge University Press on fifteenth-century Italian sculpture.
Rafael Chacón
Hipólito Rafael Chacón is Bruce and Suzanne Crocker Director of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture and Professor of Art History and Criticism at the University of Montana-Missoula where he lectures on a broad range of art historical subjects. He received his Ph.D. 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. He 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 also 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 in Cuba, Egypt, Europe, and Russia. He has twice walked the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route across France and Spain.