Professor Jeffrey Hamburger to visit the Warburg Institute as Senior Visiting Fellow from 6 to 13 March 2012

Professor Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Franko Professor of German Art and Culture at Harvard University, will be visiting the Warburg Institute as a Senior Visiting Fellow from 6 to 13 March 2012. During his visit Professor Hamburger will be giving a Public Lecture entitled “Medieval Hypertext: The Illuminated Manuscript in an Age of Virtual Reproduction” on 7 March at 16.30; speaking at the “Medieval Diagrams and Maps” workshop on 9 March; and consulting with staff and students about their research.

Professor Peter Mack, Director of the Warburg Institute, said “I am very pleased to welcome Professor Hamburger to the Institute and I am very much looking forward to his lectures. Professor Hamburger has been an important innovator in Medieval Art History and is a long-term user and good friend of the Warburg Institute library.”

Professor Hamburger's teaching and research focus on the art of the High and later Middle Ages. Among his areas of special interest are medieval manuscript illumination, text-image issues, the history of attitudes towards imagery and visual experience, and German vernacular religious writing of the Middle Ages, especially in the context of mysticism. Much of his scholarship has focused on the art of female monasticism, a program of research that culminated in 2005 in an international exhibition, Krone und Schleier (Crown and Veil) that was sponsored by the German government and held jointly in Bonn and Essen. His current research includes a project that seeks to integrate digital technology into the study and presentation of liturgical manuscripts, a study of narrative imagery in late medieval German prayer books and a major international exhibition on German manuscript illumination in the age of Gutenberg.

Professor Hamburger was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2001 and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2009. He is currently Chair of Harvard's Medieval Studies Committee. Professor Hamburger's books include: The Mind's Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Medieval West, co-edited with Anne-Marie Bouché (Princeton University Press, 2005); The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone Books, 1998), awarded the Charles Rufus Morey Prize of the College Art Association and the Roland H. Bainton Book Prize in Art & Music; Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996, awarded the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History of the American Philosophical Society and the Otto Gründler Prize of the International Congress of Medieval Studies; and The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the Rhineland circa 1300 (Yale University Press, 1990), awarded the Art Award in the Humanities by the Council of Graduate Schools and the John Nicholas Brown Prize of the Medieval Academy of America. His most recent book, Leaves from Paradise: The Cult of John at the Dominican Convent of Paradies bei Soest , Houghton Library Studies, vol. 2 (Houghton Library, distributed by Harvard University Press), was published in 2008.

Further information on events during Professor Hamburger’s visit:

The public lecture “Medieval Hypertext: The Illuminated Manuscript in an Age of Virtual Reproduction” will take place on Wednesday, 7 March 2012, at 16.30 at the Warburg Institute. This event is free of charge and open to all (prior registration is not required).

The “Medieval Diagrams and Maps” workshop will take place on Friday, 9 March 2012, at the Warburg Institute. Please note this workshop is now fully booked. To be added to the mailing list please email: warburg@sas.ac.uk

For further information on Professor Hamburger’s visit please contact:

Catherine Charlton, Institute Manager, catherine.charlton@sas.ac.uk

For further information on Warburg Institute events please visit www.warburg.sas.ac.uk.

Professor Salvatore Settis to visit the Warburg Institute as Senior Visiting Fellow from 21 to 25 November 2011

Professor Salvatore Settis, Professor of the History of Classical Art and Archaeology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, will be visiting the Warburg Institute as a Senior Visiting Fellow from 22 to 25 November 2011. During his visit Professor Settis will be giving a Public Lecture entitled “Senza far disegno: Caravaggio and the Antique” on 23 November at 16.30; speaking at the “Looking for Meaning in Renaissance Art” conference on 25 November; and consulting with staff and students about their research.

Professor Peter Mack, Director of the Warburg Institute, said “We are delighted to welcome Professor Settis to the Warburg Institute. This will provide a unique opportunity for students and staff at the Institute and the wider academic community of the University of London to engage in debate with Professor Settis and to benefit from his outstanding expertise and scholarship”.

In 1978 Professor Settis published his interpretation of Giorgione’s enigmatic painting The Tempesta, which was seen as extremely innovative within art-history circles. The book was noted for its originality and for the application of a methodology that was influenced considerably by the author’s archaeological studies. Between 1994 and 1999 he was Director of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, USA. In addition to his extensive publications on Archaeology and Art History (including Trajan’s Column, 1988; Lacoön: fame and style, 1999; The Civilisation of the Romans, 1990-94; and The Future of the Classical, 2004), in 2002 he published a polemical book entitled Italy, plc. The assault on cultural patrimony, which offered a robust critique of the management of historic and artistic patrimony in Italy over the past few decades.

Professor Settis is a member of the Institut de France, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, and the Academic Committee of the European Research Council.

Further information on events during Professor Settis’ visit:

The public lecture “Senza far disegno: Caravaggio and the Antique” will take place on Wednesday, 23 November 2011, at 16.30. This event is free of charge and open to all (prior registration is not required).

The “Looking for Meaning in Renaissance Art” conference on Friday, 25 November 2011, is unfortunately fully booked. For further information on Professor Settis’ visit please contact: Catherine Charlton, Institute Manager: Catherine.Charlton(at)sas.ac.uk