Romance Languages and Literatures

Cavaliere (Knight) in the Ordine della Stella d'Italia awarded by the President of the Republic of Italy, October 2005, in recognition of achievement in the promotion of Italian language and culture.

The Howard R. Marraro Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in Italian History, conferred January 2001, by the American Catholic Historical Association for The Preacher's Demons (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999).

Ranked among the "Top 2%" of all academic researchers consulted on academia.edu.

Bernini: His Life and His Rome. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Domenico Bernini's "Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini:" An English Translation and Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2011.

Piety and Plague: From Byzantium to the Baroque, co-editor. Truman State University Press, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 2007.

Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Missions in the Far East: An Anniversary Volume of Early Printed Sources in the Jesuitana Collection of the John J. Burns Library, Boston College, co-editor. Chestnut Hill: The Jesuit Institute, 2006.

Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800, co-editor. Exhibition catalogue, Worcester Art Museum, 2005.

The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image, ed. Exhibition catalogue, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1999.

"Did Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa Cross a Seventeenth-Century Line of Decorum?, "  forthcoming in Word and Image.

"Bernini's painting collection: A reconstructed catalogue raisonné," Journal of the History of Collections,  34.1 (March 2022): 33-50.

"Gian Paolo Oliva: The Forgotten Celebrity of Baroque Rome," in The Holy Name. Art of the Gesù: Bernini and His Age, ed. Linda Wolk-Simon (Philadelphia: St. Joseph's University Press, 2018, 187-223).

"A Bernini Workshop Drawing for a Tomb Monument," Burlington Magazine (London), n. 1376, vol. 159, November 2017: 886-92.

Entries ("Bernini, Gian Lorenzo," "Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ," "Boston College," "IHS Monogram" and "Oliva, Gian Paolo") in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits, ed. Thomas Worcester, Cambridge University Press, 2017. 

"Nudus Nudum Christum Sequi: The Franciscans and Differing Interpretations of Male Nakedness in Fifteenth-Century Italy," Fifteenth Century Studies 33 (2008): 171-197.

Book Reviews

review of Girolamo Mercuriale, On Pestilence, translated with introduction and notes by Craig Martin (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022), in Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, 45.2 (Spring 2022): 227-29.

review of Thomas Troy, Caravaggio and the Creation of Modernity (London: Reaktion Books, 2016), in Religion and the Arts, 22 (2018): 362-364.

review of Audrey Nicholls, ed.,  The Arts and Jesuit Influence in the Era of Catholic Reform (special issue of Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 104:416, Winter 2015-2016) in Journal of Jesuit Studies, 3 (2016): 722-24.

review of Willibald Sauerländer, The Catholic Rubens: Saints and Martyrs. (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2014), in Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2 (2015): 694-96.

review of Marcia B. Hall and Tracy E. Cooper, eds., The Sensuous in the Counter-Reformation Church (Cambridge University Press, 2013), caa.reviews (online publication of the College Art Association), May 15, 2014.

review of Irving Lavin, Bernini at Saint Peter's: The Pilgrimage (Pindar Press, 2012), in caa.reviews (online publication of the College Art Association), Dec. 27, 2013.

review of Maarten Delbeke, The Art of Religion: Sforza Pallavicino and Art Theory in Bernini's Rome (Ashgate, 2012), in Renaissance Quarterly, 66.2 (2013): 614-615.

review of Sarah McPhee, Bernini's Beloved: A Portrait of Costanza Piccolomini (Yale University Press, 2012), in Renaissance Quarterly, 65.3 (2012): 888-89.

"Bernini: A Discussion of His Works at the Getty (and Elsewhere)."  Presentation for the Docents of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA. June 18, 2022.

"Bernini and Caravaggio: Kindred Spirits." Dartmouth College, sponsored by the Department of French and Italian, May 11, 2022.

"Art Responds to Medical Disaster: Italian Painting and the Bubonic Plague, 1500-  1800." Presentation for University of Trier (Germany) seminar, "Der rote  Tode: Pandemische Krankheiten in Kunst und Wissenschaft der Neuzeit und    Moderne" (led by Prof. Ulrike Gehring).  January 19, 2022.

"Hope and Healing: The Role of Art in Times of Pandemic (Italian Art and the Bubonic Plague, 1500-1800). Online interview for Faculti.net, March 2021

"Ignatius the Franciscan: The Franciscan Roots of Jesuit Spirituality." Public lecture sponsored by the Boston College Center for Ignatian Spirituality, November 6, 2019. (Video available on Youtube.)

"Bernini's Painting Collection." Presentation at the Frick Museum, New York, symposium, "When Michelangelo Was Modern: The Art Market and Collecting in Italy, 1450-1650," April 12-13, 2019.

“Bernini, the Jesuit Artist?” Presentation at the Symposium, “Art of the Gesù: Bernini and His Age,” Fairfield University Art Museum, Fairfield, CT, April 6, 2018.

“Raphael’s Disputa: Neither Disputation nor Eucharist is Its Subject,” Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 24th Interdisciplinary Conference, February 10, 2018, Scottsdale, AZ and The Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, November 2, 2018, Albuquerque, NM.

"Domenico Bernini sul busto del Salvatore: Come leggere il testo." Invited lecture at international scholarly symposium held in conjunction with major exhibition of Bernini's works at the Galleria Borghese, Rome, Jan. 22, 2018.

"Playing with Fire: Did Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa Cross a Seventeenth-Century Line of Decorum?" Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Boston, March 31, 2016.

"The Evolving Profile of the 'Witch' in Early Renaissance Europe: The Trial of Matteuccia of Todi, 1428." Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 21st Interdisciplinary Conference, February 6, 2016, Scottsdale, AZ.

"Bernini, Impresario." Casa Italiana, New York University, February 22, 2016, sponsored by Salon / Sanctuary Concerts.

"Michelangelo: The Life and Works of the Renaissance Genius." Presentation for the Docents of the Phoenix Art Museum, in conjunction with the exhibition, "Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane. Drawings from the Casa Buonarroti, Florence." February 5, 2016. 

"How to Become a Celebrity Public Speaker: Instructions from Bernardino of Siena, Popular Preacher of Quattrocento Italy," Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 21st Interdisciplinary Conference, February 7, 2015, Scottsdale, AZ.

"Bernini: Impresario Supreme of Baroque Rome." Yale University, Institute of Sacred Music, April 26, 2014.

Bernini: His Life and His Rome: lecture given at The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort, Worth, Texas, March 2, 2013 and The Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, October 23, 2013.

"Bernini's Models in Clay: What the Biographical Sources Reveal," paper given in the symposium, "Bernini Beyond Clay," Harvard University, the Mahindra Humanities Center, Nov. 16, 2012.

"Bernini and the Baroque Transformation of the Catholic Imagination," public lecture, Villanova University, Oct. 2, 2012, sponsored by the Villanova Office of the Vice President for Mission and Ministry.

"Bernini and His Rome," public lecture at the Italian Institute for Culture, San Francisco, Feb. 17, 2012.

"A Pope's Banquet and a Jesuit's Oration for a Newly Converted Queen: Alexander VII, Gian Paolo Oliva, and Christina of Sweden, Dec. 26, 1655," Sixteenth Century Conference, Geneva, May 28, 2009.

"Nothing as It Seems: Annotations (Reconstructive and Deconstructive) upon Domenico Bernini's Vita del Cav. Gio. Lorenzo Bernini." Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Chicago, April 4, 2008.