My research explores the inter-relationships between architecture, urbanism, holiness, and gender in early modern Italy, seeking to understand materiality, form and spatiality in relation to conflict and desire.
My recent book, Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-century Neapolitan Convents (Oxford UP, 2004), awarded the Best Book Prize (2004) by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (USA), considers aristocratic conventual architecture as metaphor for the aristocratic virginal body. Marmi mischi siciliani: invenzione e identità (Messina: BASM, 1999) sought to re-evaluate the intensely decorated marble inlaid chapels of baroque Palermo, by analysing them in relation to the political and social force fields in which they were produced. Thus I take issue with the long-standing (still persistent) view of southern baroque architecture as provincial and untutored imitation of the grandeur of Rome.
Rethinking the Baroque, an interdisciplinary volume of essays exploring baroque’s potential, was published in August 2011. It contains essays by leading scholars in art history, philosophy, literature and literary theory, and arose from an international conference I organized at York & Castle Howard in 2006.
I am co-founder of the Neapolitan Network , an exchange and meeting point for scholars of Neapolitan culture from all over the world, that developed from an AHRC-funded Network and was established in 2010.
CAA, AAH, Universities of Essex, Courtauld Institute, Warwick, Reading, Oxford, Manchester, Sussex, MMU, (Renaissance Research Seminar); Cambridge; Leeds (early modern Research seminar); Liverpool; Clark Institute, USA; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UCL-Courtauld Early Modern Research Seminar; University of Valenciennes; University of Stockholm; University of Santiago Chile; Palazzone Cortona (Harvard, Scuola Normale Pisa & EPHE, Paris); Universität der Künste, Berlin; V & A; National Gallery; British School in Rome; Queen’s University, Canada; SE College Art Conference USA; Centro Internazionale di Studi sul barocco in Sicilia; Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei; Istituto Portugues do Patrimonio Arquitectonico; Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies (Pittsburgh); Universita degli Studi, Palermo; Conference of Urban Historians, Berlin; Villa Le Balze (Georgetown University), Florence; Roma Tre University; Ecole Francaise de Rome; Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome; Universita degli Studi, Bologna; La Sapienza, Rome; Antwerp University;Fondazione Valerio per la storia delle donne, Naples.
I also have a lively interest in contemporary architecture and urbanism and have published on contemporary art (see publications). I initiated a large research project, Cultural memory and architecture in post-industrial Manchester which received one of the first large grants ever awarded by the AHRB. My research focused principally on interstitial spaces, particularly underneath the railway arches as emblematic of post-industrial urbanity (see publications).
I directed the Architectural History and Theory Research School at York between 2005-2010 and organized Study days and symposia on ‘Monument’ (2006), ‘Space’ (2007), ‘Architecture & Holiness Beyond Liturgy’ (2008), ‘Niche’ (2010), ‘Precious Stones & other Materials’ (2009), involving speakers from art and architectural history, architectural schools, and Departments of philosophy, English literature, and history from York and beyond.
I was responsible for bringing to York Professor Joseph Connors, Director Villa I Tatti for the Patrides Lecture; Professor Andrew Benjamin (Monash University , Australia) as Distinguished Visiting Speaker in January 2011 and Professor Alexei Lidov, Distinguished Visiting Professor 1 May-30 June 2011.
Following my British Academy Research Readership (2005-07), I am now completing a monograph book on the spiritual topography of Naples. This book considers baroque architecture, reliquaries, altarpieces, book frontispieces, portraits of would-be saints, and sculpture, as forms of holiness. It works towards thinking architecture as productive rather than as instantiation of pre-formed idea; and towards architecture as involved with, but not to be explained solely in terms of, non-architectural historical processes. Seeking to understand forms of holiness in relation to socio-political, urban and governmental questions, but not to reduce an analysis of form to these factors, my book explores how architecture can best be understood in relation to holiness. It considers architecture as intersection of and exchange between extensive and intensive space in the case of the miracle-working and exuberantly decorated Cappella del Tesoro in Naples Cathedral.
I welcome enquiries from students wanting to undertake research in areas related to my research interests (especially baroque architecture, Italian baroque sculpture & painting, relationships between holiness & architecture or genders /sexualities and urbanism / architecture).
Prospective PhD candidates may like to consult the History of Art Department's funding webpage, the Italian Cultural Association's website "Il Circolo", The British School at Rome and ResearchResearch.com for details of available scholarships.
In addition, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill I served on the PhD committees and supervised the successful completion of the PhD Baroque Examinations of a further 14 students.
In Progress