Associate Professor
M.A. Syracuse University, Graduate Program in Renaissance Art, Florence
Ph.D. Rutgers University
Devlin Hall 421
617-552-6459
leonest@bc.edu
Fields of Interest
Renaissance and Baroque Italian Art with concentrations in: architecture and urban planning, patronage, domestic art, Renaissance Florence, the papal court in Rome, and women as patrons and artists.
Academic Profile
My primary field of research concerns domestic art and architecture in seventeenth-century
Teaching
I teach courses on Italian art of the Early and High Renaissance and the Baroque. In undergraduate seminars, I have explored topics related to my research interests: the architecture, decoration, and material culture of Italian palaces from 1450-1650; domestic architecture around the world, co-taught with Prof. Jonathan Bloom; and the history of collecting and museums, co-taught with Prof. Nancy Netzer, Director of the McMullen Museum of Art. I also teach an interdisciplinary course on the history, art, and literature of early modern
Representative Publications
- "La storia dell'architettura di Palazzo Pamphilj." In Il Palazzo Pamphilj nella piazza Navona, Roma: gli affreschi, ed. Francesca Cappelletti (Rome: Poligrafico dello Stato, forthcoming).
- The Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona: Constructing Identity in Early Modern Rome
(NY and Turnhout: Harvey Miller/Brepols, 2008). - "In vogue in fifteenth-century Florence: the material culture of marriage." In Where the Secular Meets the Sacred in Medieval and Renaissance Art, exhibition catalogue (McMullen Museum of Art, 2006).
- Walls and Memory: the Abbey of San Sebastiano at Alatri (Lazio), from Late Roman Monastery to Renaissance Villa and Beyond, ed. by Lisa Fentress, Caroline Goodson, Margaret Laird, and Stephanie Leone (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005).
- “From Medieval Monastery to Early Renaissance Villa: the patronage of Giovanni Tortelli,” and “The fattoria of the Doria Pamphilj.” In Walls and Memory: the Abbey of San Sebastiano at Alatri (Lazio), from Late Roman Monastery to Renaissance Villa and Beyond (Brussels, Brepols Publishers, 2005).
- “Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj Builds a Palace: Self-Representation and Familial Ambition in Early Modern Rome.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
63 (2004). - “Il colore della facciata del palazzo Pamphilj in piazza Navona: i documenti del archivio.” I Beni culturali 4-5/03 (2003).
Website
Roma: Caput Mundi