Support our student scholarships and bursaries
The Warburg Institute is committed to attracting students from across the world, to study and learn at all levels, regardless of background or circumstance. Student scholarships and bursaries make it possible for students, who might not be able to otherwise, to attend the Institute. We strive to be a haven for people and collections who are displaced, offering a refuge as well as a cultural memory bank in line with the original mission of the Institute.
Thanks to a number of generous donations we are able to offer scholarships and bursaries to students studying at the Warburg Institute, which not only provide financial support, but as last year’s Peltz Scholar who is studying on the MA in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture course noted, "it places confidence in the student to continue with their education. Without the generosity of foundations or donors, some educational opportunities for many, as they were for me, are very difficult to obtain".
If you are interested in helping to aid student scholarships and bursaries please get in touch with us at warburg@sas.ac.uk.
Current students to have received scholarships
American Friends Scholarships
Ruby Armstrong | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Ruby Armstrong earned her BA in History with Honors and Distinction in General Scholarship from the University of California, Berkeley. She focused on Medieval History, in particular the intersections between gender and piety and questions of female authority. She completed a capstone thesis on illuminated books of hours and individuality. Through the MA in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture, Ruby hopes to delve further into the period using the Warburg’s interdisciplinary approach and the library’s strengths in subjects such as magic and the occult. She hopes to pursue a career in museums.
Chiara Campagnaro | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Chiara Campagnaro is a recent graduate from the University of Toronto, Canada, where she earned her Honours Bachelor of Arts in History and Renaissance Studies with a minor in Italian Studies. Her final-year research project on Il Petrarca, the early modern print book of Petrarch’s poetry, assessed how Venetian printers responded to sixteenth-century censorship laws by comparing various editions of the print book. Her research interests include the role of women in the Italian book trade, the study of gender in Renaissance epics, and representations of women in devotional art and painting. As a master’s student at the Warburg Institute, Chiara hopes to develop her research and curatorial skills to prepare for a career in education and public cultural institutions.
Joseph Rowley | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Joseph Rowley received his BA in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Brigham Young University, Utah. He is particularly interested in the materials, contexts, and iconographies that combined to create devotional experience for viewers of late Medieval and early modern art. That same interest in viewer experience translates well into curatorial work, and Joseph was delighted to find a home at the Warburg with exceptional training in both aspects of the field. Joseph and his wife, Julia, are enamoured with London and grateful for the funding that made this transformative experience possible. They met performing Shakespeare together in high school—one of several reasons they named their son William.
Peltz-Roden Scholarships
William Hopkinson | MA in Cultural, Intellectual and Visual History 2022-23
William Hopkinson completed his BA in History and graduated in 2019. His dissertation on the use of coinage in late republican and early imperial Rome led him onto his first MA in ancient history at KCL. During that time he cemented his knowledge and understanding of the ancient world and worked on close analysis of ancient texts from Cicero to Vitruvius to Sallust. William was fortunate enough to also be able to study classical reception during this period and came to appreciate the undeniable connection between the ancient world and later societies/generations who often relied upon it for strength and purpose. He ended up writing his MA dissertation on Florentine architect, Filarete, and attempted to give a re-examination of his virtue theory in his Libro Architettonico (his hybrid architectural treatise which laid down his plans for an ideal city named Sforzinda). This avenue of research gave William the opportunity to use the Warburg library to access the huge variety of material on Filarete and associated subjects. The Warburg’s ‘law of the good neighbour’ proved invaluable to his research. William’s other reception essays on Rome’s role in Nietzsche’s thought and Homeric allegory in Byzantine education also benefited greatly from the Institute’s resources and general scholarly environment. Naturally, William saw studying at the Warburg as the next logical step in his academic journey.
Alexander Gould | MA in Cultural, Intellectual and Visual History 2022-23
Alex Gould graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 2022 with a First Class degree in History and French. Alex’s BA studies were focused on the intellectual history of early modern Europe, with particular attention paid to the French humanists. His dissertation, 'The Early Modern Reception of Caesar: Siege Strategy in the French Civil Wars', explored Renaissance translations of and commentaries on Julius Caesar's military writings, in the context of the religious conflicts of 16th and 17th century France. Alex identified linguistic continuities between Latin and French versions of Caesar's De bello gallico and De bello civile and contemplated early modern visual renderings of ancient war machines to reveal a new perspective on the relationship between humanist philology, visual culture, and technical siegecraft. This project gave him his first experience of palaeography, as he was fortunate enough to work on original copies of several of the Renaissance texts he was studying, which were preserved in the Magdalen College collection.
Alex applied to the Warburg Institute to expand his interdisciplinary methodology, develop a robust reading knowledge of Neo-Latin, and to continue to examine how the intellectual developments of early modern European society were represented in different literary and artistic media. He looks forward to drawing on the rich resources of the Institute and the expertise of its tutors to study areas of visual and cultural history he has not yet explored in a formal academic context. Alex’s interests include the significance of devotional objects in the Protestant and Catholic reformations, and how 17th century French realist portraiture, such as the work of the Le Nain brothers, demonstrates both a stylistic and cultural crossover between monarchist France and the republican United Provinces. During the MA, he aims to identify which research interest he would like to develop into a PhD proposal.
The Peltz-Roden Scholarship has alleviated Alex’s previous concerns about being able to pay the MA fees and afford to live in London, allowing him to pursue the next stage of his academic career in an institution with unparalleled resources and highly specialist tutors. Alex is immensely grateful for this support.
Lalie Constantin | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Lalie Constantin, after receiving an undergraduate of art history at the University of Cambridge, aims to specialise in Renaissance art, improve her research skills, and explore a different approach to the field. The Warburg Institute, with its history of rigorous and cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, thus appears as an ideal, yet natural, pursuit of studies which the Peltz-Roden scholarship makes accessible.
The view of art in a wider, and more global, cultural context that the Warburg Institute advocates aligns with her main interest in uncovering the importance of ephemeral cultural events and their collective production in Renaissance art. Lalie’s finalist dissertation ‘The festivities of the last Valois: the court environment as a factor of development of Mannerism in France’ tackled such issues in regard to Mannerism, a cultural movement which, she believes, needs to be reassessed.
Mannerism is too little understood both by the public and academics. She is eager to undertake research to readjust the perception of a field that has been misrepresented for decades. Curatorship in public museums she feels is key to changing the view of Mannerism and Renaissance art at large. Hence, she felt studying curatorship in relation with Renaissance culture under the guidance of the National Gallery appeared as a most enriching and relevant opportunity.
Lalie feels the Peltz-Roden scholarship will allow her to access this course, which she thought necessary to achieve her ambition of becoming a researcher whilst not limiting her younger sibling's possibilities for higher education.
Lea Monteil | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
“I think that going to the Warburg Institute is one of the dreams every art historian of the modern period has, and I am thus very grateful to the Peltz-Roden scholarship that have allowed me to achieve it.”
Yasmin Anwer | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Yasmin Anwer holds a First-Class Honours degree in History from the University of Warwick, where, during her term abroad in Venice, she gained first-hand experience interacting with Renaissance art history in its original context. Yasmin’s research interests focus on the presence of ‘forgotten’ female artists during the Renaissance, particularly the story of Artemisia Gentileschi, and the way in which her history has been unveiled amongst historians, paying attention to the complex dynamics between gender and artistic practice. She is also interested in exploring the connections between Venice and the Islamic world, particularly regarding art and architecture. After completing a Masters in Arts and Cultural Management, graduating with Distinction from King’s College London, she gained a further interest in curatorship, undertaking extensive research into digitally immersive Renaissance art exhibitions at the National Gallery.
In undertaking a Masters in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture at the Warburg, Yasmin hopes to gain a key specialist knowledge into art history and deepen her understanding of Italian Renaissance culture, in order to gain curatorial skills at the highest level. It is the dynamic and interdisciplinary learning environment of the Warburg that appeals to her greatly, particularly the intersections between scholarship and practical curatorial experience. In gaining funding from the Peltz-Roden scholarship, it enables Yasmin to pursue her ambitions of creating and curating Renaissance art exhibitions that are meaningful, relevant and exciting.
Paloma Ley | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Paloma Ley holds a First Class History degree from the University of St Andrews. Since graduating, she has worked at a conservation charity which has deepened her belief in public engagement with, and preservation of, cultural heritage. This experience, combined with her cross-disciplinary research interests, has inspired her to return to university to specialise in the fields of art history and curatorship.
As someone who is committed to a career which preserves and develops art collections for posterity and education, Paloma is interested in curatorial practise. The curator’s role fascinates her as it is pivotal in shaping the narrative and future direction of public art collections. Paloma is excited to expand her knowledge of curating as an intellectual discipline through the specialist training offered by the Warburg and the National Gallery. This MA will help her to pursue a future curatorial career which seeks new perspectives amongst collections to invite wider audiences.
In line with Paloma’s interest in curating, as a means to encourage different approaches, her wider research is concerned with underrepresented narratives such as the experience of women and political minorities. This was explored in her undergraduate dissertation about the uncollated radical writings of a female political activist. Paloma is keen to develop her research interests within the context of the multifaceted Renaissance period; the Warburg’s interdisciplinary approach is the ideal environment in which to further enrich her research.
Paloma is grateful for the generous support of the Peltz-Roden scholarship which has given her the backing and confidence to take this exciting next step.
Marlene Baltazar Manuncia | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Marlene Baltazar Manuncia is a chartered accountant and former airline manager who found her passion for art and culture over decades of working and travelling in different parts of the world. This immersive cultural experience unlocked her interest to understand the various stages of local history and its manifestation in visual art forms.
She supplemented readings and self-studies with museum visits, exhibitions, seminars and workshops offered by various academic and cultural institutions wherever she was domiciled. This finally culminated in a series of courses at the Oxford Continuing Education Department and formal post-graduate studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Her subject choices reflected her diverse interests, cross-cultural background, and life experience. Particular periods where East meets West, and the blending of cultures appealed to her. She examined medieval Spain and its role as a contact zone for indigenous, northern European, Italian, and Islamic artistic traditions.
Marlene’s MA special option was an interdisciplinary investigation into the arts, material culture and built environment of Safavid Persia with particular attention on the city of Isfahan and early modern urbanity. The study straddled the Safavid, Ottoman and Mughal empires in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and zoomed in and out of the Middle East and South Asia. Her dissertation, which received a distinction, focused on Safavid figural textiles that were representations of literary narratives derived from epics and romances.
Warburg Institute’s MA course presents Marlene an opportunity to delve into the history, culture and art of the West in the Renaissance period. Coupled with her knowledge of the art history and culture of the East, she intends to explore parallels and intersections between the two worlds in the early modern period.
Rachele Nizi | MA Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture 2022-23
Rachele Nizi holds an Undergraduate degree in History and History of Ideas from Goldsmiths University College of London. Her interest in the afterlife of antiquity in Western tradition led her to complete the MA in Reception of the Classical World at UCL. Her research focused primarily on the role of Ancient Greek tragedy and mythology in defining and shaping eighteenth and nineteenth century European culture and society.
She has experience volunteering and working in different museums across London, including UCL Art Museum, Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, and The Jewish Museum London, where she currently works as Collections Engagement Assistant. Driven by the desire to nourish her understanding of Art History, she chose the Master of Arts in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture at The Warburg Institute to gain a deeper appreciation for some of the most celebrated works of Art in history and, perhaps more importantly, to understand their implications in the present day in relation to museum practices.
“The study of Humanities allowed me to deepen my understanding of the central role of art in shaping the culture and society of both classical and modern times. I am convinced that The Warburg Institute is the most desirable place to investigate the dialectic between classic and modern, offering behind-the-scenes access to a unique library for world-leading research, teaching, and expertise in the field of visual arts and humanities, and partnership with one of the leading collections of Old Master paintings”.
Through the Warburg Institute’s MA in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture, as well as the generous support offered by the Peltz Scholarship, she hopes to develop the skills necessary to foster an operational and concrete approach in the research, conception, arrangement, and communication to the audience of European Art and History, with an emphasis on the collections that inspire both The Warburg Institute and The National Gallery.
JB Trapp Scholarships
Guillermo Ezequiel Willis | PhD
Guillermo earned a Bachelor of Arts in History of Art and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Buenos Aires (2015). He pursued postgraduate studies at the Warburg Institute, where he achieved a Master of Arts in Cultural and Intellectual History of the Renaissance (2018). His MA dissertation, ‘The Heart-Machine: Giovanni Alfonso Borelli on the Movement of the Heart’, led to a further exploration of the impact on the field of anatomy of the French philosopher Pierre Gassendi’s revival of Epicurus’s thought in the 17th century, which is the subject examined by his current PhD research project.
In past years, Guillermo had also been researching and cataloguing 16th and 17th-centuries prints and drawings in the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts (Argentina), and held the Michael Bromberg Fellowship at the Department of Prints and Drawings of the British Museum (2019). In addition to his academic interests, Guillermo earned a Bachelor of Music in Bandoneon from the Conservatorio Superior de Música ‘Manuel de Falla’ (2015), and is keenly interested in playing Tango music.
Hugh Cullimore | PhD
Hugh Cullimore graduated with first-class honours in History of Art from the Australian National University in 2018. His dissertation examined the influence of hieroglyphics on Raphael’s later oeuvre and received the Janet Wilkie Memorial Prize for the highest overall grade in his cohort. From there it was obvious that the Warburg was the next step academically. After three years working as an Assistant Curator and Reference Librarian at the Australia War Memorial, Hugh was able to afford his move to London to complete a MA in Cultural, Intellectual, and Visual History at the Warburg. His MA dissertation identified and examined the role-as-motif of Asian and African weaponry in Netherlandish painting from 1604-1662.
Hugh’s PhD returns to his earlier interests and will examine the role of the Hieroglyphics of Horapollo on the creation of emblems and as a key influence on the development of the broader European emblematic genre throughout the seventeenth century. Without this scholarship, it would be impossible for him to complete this study – one that has been on his mind for many years. He hopes that the opportunity to study this area in close geographical proximity to experts both at the Warburg and in Continental Europe will create academic opportunities and research unavailable to him back in Australia.
Saxl-Gombrich Scholarship
Aram Deknatel | PhD
Aram Deknatel recently completed his second MA in architectural history and heritage studies at the University of Utrecht. Originally a classicist (he obtained his BA at the University of Amsterdam) he spent a year at the Accademia Vivarium Novum to immerge himself in the world of living Latin and Greek. Subsequently, Aram did a Master's degree in classics at the Sorbonne. Feeling limited by the field of classics, he combined his research with his knowledge of art and architecture, leading to a dissertation on the aesthetics of Vitruvius and Alberti. Aram is interested in architecture and architectural theory from antiquity to modern times. In his research he focuses on the language of forms, where they come from, how they develop, and what they can tell us about society and people's ideals. Aram conceives architecture is not just as an aesthetic discipline, for him architecture is the art that tells us how people have shaped their world throughout the centuries. Architecture is indeed one of the most fundamental ways in which humans interfere with nature and one of the most lasting examples of technical craftsmanship and collective planning.
Aram's current research is about how this relation between people and their ideals is reflected in the architectural theory of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. Aram is studying theTrattato di Architettura written by the fifteenth-century sculptor and architect Antonio Averlino, better known under his self-given nickname Filarete. This unique architectural treatise, which is written as a dialogue, we find a description of the ideal city of Sforzinda with every building in it described in meticulous detail. The work is usually criticised for its chaotic structure, its outdated theory and its clumsy and grotesque drawings, because it doesn't fit well in the common narrative in architectural history. In his current project, Aram tries to take away some of this discredit by looking at the treatise in the context of mediaeval ideal cities and utopian visions. Combining his interest in architecture with his philological background, Aram tries to shed new light on this mysterious and under-researched book written at a pivotal moment in art history.
Rubinstein Scholarships
Rossella Monopoli | PhD
The Warburg Institute is renowned to be one of the world’s major centres for the study of the Renaissance in all its aspects and applying for a PhD at the Institute stood for me as the best and natural progression of my education as an art historian interested in the study of this fascinating period.
This generous funding will give me the opportunity to conduct my research in London, being part of the stimulating community of the Warburg and interact with scholars from all over the world collaborating with the Institute. I am sure that this experience will contribute to widen the scope of my research and to enrich my approach to the study of the Renaissance art and culture, giving me stronger methodological insights and, not least, the opportunity of living in the amazing city of London.
Florence Forte | PhD
Florence Forte is a teacher of Classics with over eight years’ experience in schools across the UK and Italy. She completed her BA at Nottingham followed by a PGCE at King’s College London. In 2015, she moved to Florence where the Renaissance captured her imagination and eventually led her to the Warburg’s MA in Cultural, Intellectual and Visual History in 2020.
Florence’s PhD will build on her MA dissertation examining Isotta Nogarola’s Latin dialogue “On the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve” (c. 1451), which encountered underlying problems with the validity of the text and related scholarship. Through this PhD project, supported by the Rubinstein scholarship and well-grounded in primary sources, she intends to advance a new framework for understanding the text and to challenge the status quo in scholarship on early modern women’s writing more widely. In her spare time, Florence organises courses and cultural events in Italy promoting classical antiquity and its reception in Renaissance art, history, and literature with students from all backgrounds.