Research Interests

Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture

Research Abstract

My research has been centered on the art and architecture of seventeenth-century Italy, and for many years this has focused on the baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. I have written two books on the artist--Bernini in Perspective and an annotated edition of the Diary of the Cavaliere Bernini's Visit to France (with A. Blunt and M. Corbett) kept by the French scholar and humanist Paul Fréart de Chantelou during the summer of 1665 when the artist went to Paris to prepare designs for the Louvre Palace of Louis XIV. More recently, I have worked on the professionalization of architecture--what was entailed when Bernini turned from sculpture to architecture in the 1620s--and on the changing relationship of artist and patron during the seventeenth century. Along with Linda Bauer, I am now working on how the social relations among artists contributed to cultural production during the same period.

Link to this profile

http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2078

Last updated

04/08/2010