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Item The Artist Gaze: Vettor Pisani(2020) Di Sabatino, Maria Vittoria; Lauf, Cornelia; Linford, SarahThis thesis will take into consideration some of Vettor Pisani’s main works from the 1970s, withrelated pictures and shots documenting the artist’s gaze in three different scenarios: the artistalone; the artist looking at the performer; the artist and Michelangelo Pistoletto’s overlappingportraits exhibited on occasion of their joint exhibition Plagio at Galleria Marlborough. At thesame time, it will explore the issues of authorship, co-authorship, and agency both withinPisani’s oeuvre and in the artist’s relationships with his wife, other artists with whom hecollaborated (Pistoletto) and the photographers who documented his work.Item Vanishing Rome: Weighing the Losses After the Flood of 1870(2022) Chung, Taylor James; Koehler, Jens; Lauf, CorneliaFollowing the Unification of Italy and the rededication of Rome as Capital, a major floodinundated the city at the end 1870. As a reaction to these aligning events, major transformationsto the city’s infrastructure soon followed, especially to the Tiber as a direct result of controllingits recurring floods. As a reaction these transformations taking place in Rome, the watercoloristEttore Roesler Franz began a series of one hundred and twenty watercolors, called Roma Sparita,capturing picturesque views of urban and suburban Rome before its complete modernization.Through the work of Ettore Roesler Franz in this series this research investigates thehistoriography of Rome along the Tiber river before and after these public works projects tounderstand how these changes occurred, why it was necessary, and what effect it had on thememory of the past, identity, and heritage of its people. It is through such formal analysis ofphotographic evidence, Franz’s paintings, and historical records, that we may corroborate theintentions of the ruling government to protect the city and its people from floods by transformingthe Tiber, and thus, many historical Roman structures. There remains a general consensus thatFranz’s work constitutes as a historical record of medieval Rome before its modernization.However, this research found the ‘staging’ of his watercolor vistas as less a historical record andmore ‘his’ memories of Rome; and as such, his urban landscapes were often misleadinglyinaccurate to justify fashioning a more ‘picturesque’ and scenic Rome.Item Snippets of Life: The Curated Assemblage in Roman Wall Painting(2021) Lopez, Odette; Corrado, Crispin; Hansen, IngeDespite being a relatively understudied category of Roman wall painting, images of food, animals, and inanimate objects – known for the past century as ancient still life – functioned as holistic representations of Roman life and culture. The term “still life” does not fully acknowledge, however, the fluidity and complexity of the ancient genre. Essentially, these paintings were much more than decorative ‘fillers’ within painted ensembles. By depicting personalized, carefully curated groupings of everyday objects that were emblematic of different vital associations, they managed to serve as communicative vehicles for delivering meaning through display. This thesis, hence, proposes ‘Curated Assemblage’ as a more effective term for these paintings, and aims to delimit their compositional form within the context of Roman wall-painting. It also explores the ways in which the paintings within this genre acted as vibrant visual statements with inherent agency for both spaces and viewers. With a new definition therefore, that recognizes these representations as carefully chosen objects that were both important to the patron and emblematic of Roman life, this corpus also expands to include compositions that have otherwise been overlooked in modern scholarship. Thus, new curated “object groupings” may be recognized as belonging to this class, for the first time. They include fruits and birds that were visually “plucked” from their natural garden surroundings, chosen for their particular species and assembled on a shelf unframed, to be called herein, “Floating Shelves.” They also include fruits and birds that have been purposefully chosen to be carefully constructed in garden scenes and woven into garlands. This paper will show that it is the purposeful gathering of these items that allow them all to be included in the genre of the Curated Assemblage.Item An American in Rome: The Career of George William Breck (1863-1920) and the Mosaic Commissions for the Facade and West Wall of St. Paul’s Within-the-Walls, Rome(2021) Pierson, Madison Noel; Georgi, Karen; Linford, SarahDuring the first two decades of the 20th century, the American Artist George WilliamBreck received two substantial commissions to design mosaics for the facade and west wall ofSaint Paul’s Within-the-Walls, the American Episcopal Church in Rome, Italy. And yet, very littleis known about Breck’s career. Who was this American artist, and how did his career develop insuch a way that Breck received commissions in Rome? This thesis will use archival records tounravel Breck’s career, from the artist’s early years in New York City, through his time in Italy asfirst Fellow and then Director of the American Academy in Rome. A case study will be made ofBreck’s mosaic commissions for Saint Paul’s Within-the-Walls. This thesis and the ensuing tablesprovide a collection of archival sources for future studies of the career of George W. Breck.Item Painting a New Portrait: The Unknown Artists of Biblioteca Vallicelliana Ms A.1(2020) Asenas, Elizabeth Cheryl; Yawn, Lila; Foster, LauraThis study undertakes a thorough examination of the decorative vocabulary of the illuminated initials of the Italian Giant Bible, Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Ms A.1. It is considered one of the most anomalous Italian Giant Bibles because of its highly unusual vocabulary. These decorations --- acrobatic nude figures with swords, elephant heads devouring birds, and shoots of fantastical foliage -- are surprisingly understudied given their wildly imaginative nature. It is perhaps due to the manuscript’s lack of key features regarded as hallmarks of the Giant Bible genre --the decorative “Geometrical” initial type, and the use of a “standardized” Caroline minuscule -- that have kept this manuscript out of the immense amount of literature on Giant Bibles. This study is aimed at creating a language and a classification system to analyze the ornamental vocabulary of the decorative motifs employed by the artists in this manuscript. Through the naming, defining and documenting of these motifs a classification system will be devised. In treating the decorative motifs as a singular avenue of study, this thesis ultimately aims to understand more about the creators of this particular manuscript through their decorative choices, which in turn will paint a better understanding of the repertoire of visual motifs available to the artists or the historical traditions that inspired them. In developing a language to describe the ornamental vocabulary, this thesis also seeks to encourage scholarly consistency in terminology that will aid in the investigation of decorative elements, which in turn will provide more information concerning this still understudied genre of manuscripts.Item Entangled Agencies: Reframing Roman Articulated Dolls(2021) Bonadurer, Jordan; Hansen, Inge; Salvadori, SalvadoriWhile previous scholarship has addressed possible social purposes of the dolls, I examine the material agency of the doll itself. In this paper, I first examine how the visual qualities of the doll hold agency, specifically in regard to imperial-image referencing on a small-scale private image of a woman in the form of a doll. After examining the visual agency of the object, I seek to consider how the materiality of the doll gives it purpose as a “thing” and initiates viewer participation. Lastly, I examine the power of haptic qualities related to touch, adornment, and sensation in forming an interactive loop between object and participant in these objects. I aim to view the dolls as physical assemblages in terms of agency and ‘thingly-ness,’ building upon the previous archaeological and social reading. To examine a Roman articulated doll in this way, that is, an object that has the power to exert an impetus from the viewer, I will consider the major aspects which contribute to its ‘thingly’ agency, namely its visual, material, and haptic agency. These qualities form an intersected map, marking inherent points of the object which contribute to its ability to act on participants. Through a return to the ‘thing’, Roman articulated dolls can be examined as a class of things that has power in reciprocal exchanges. These observations regarding the visual, material, and haptic agency of the dolls have been approached using theories which emphasize webs of connections between objects and humans. Rather than viewing objects as static and representational, these theories premise that things have reciprocal power in exchanges. Namely, thing theory, Actor Network theory, and Entanglement are useful in observing objects in ways which do not rely on purely social or iconographic information. When objects become things, something rooted in agency, they too can be examined as a type of player which causes action.Item The Adaptation and Rejection of Divisionism in Futurism 1910-1913(2021) Medvigy, Yuko; Linford, Sarah; Foster, LauraFuturism was born in Milan in 1909 as a literary movement, and its principal goal was toinvigorate Italy culturally and politically in the aftermath of the Risorgimento. The threeMilanese painters Boccioni, Carrà and Russolo, along with Severini in Paris and Balla inRome, joined the movement initiated by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti a year later withvague ideas about what their new art was to look like. One thing they were not vagueabout was Divisionism, which they declared was absolutely essential and necessary fortheir art. For them, Divisionism provided an ideal solution for expressing the speed anddynamism of modern technology, which aligned with Marinetti’s foundational manifesto.This thesis examines the foundational years of Futurist painting from 1910 to 1913 toelucidate how Divisionism was adapted by the Futurist painters to achieve Futuristaesthetic, and what caused it to be abandoned by 1913. For this investigation, Ball’sLampada ad arco is analyzed in detail, using Boccioni’s paintings from the same periodas comparative material. Balla was the most experienced in Divisionism and Boccioniwas the leader of the group, thus how they interpreted Futurist dynamism with relation toDivisionism is central to this investigation. The primary sources for this investigationinclude the early Futurist manifestos and related art theories, and numerous publicationsby Futurism scholars are used as secondary sources. Divisionism was closely associatedwith the Lombard Symbolists whom the Futurist painters much admired, but theirencounter with Cubism in late 1911 drastically changed the artistic direction of the groupand led them to a more philosophical analysis and new developments of their art.Collectively, the Futurist painters began moving away from the color-centric aesthetics ofDivisionism by 1912, which no longer satisfied their artistic needs and ambition.Item Madonna of the Magnificat and the Nineteenth Century “Rediscovery” of Botticelli(2022) Hillman, Katherine; Georgi, Karen; Smyth, CarolynThis thesis focuses on the nineteenth century display and reception of Sando Botticelli’s Madonna of the Magnificat within the Uffizi Gallery. As a part of Botticelli’s nineteenth century “rediscovery” as an artist, Madonna of the Magnificat captured the attention of Alexis-François Rio, Walter Pater, and John Addington Symonds during their visits to Florence in the mid-nineteenth century. Through returning to primary sources from the nineteenth century, this thesis investigates if there is a connection between the display of this painting and its nineteenth century critical reception. While the display did not influence the individual interpretations of the Madonna’s melancholic expression by these art critics, the display impacted how this painting captivated the attention of these art critics against the other paintings in the space.Item Sun in the Garden: Medieval Light Theology and the San Zeno Chapel in Santa Prassede(2018) Torello, Kelsie; Yawn, Lila; Salvadori, SharonThis thesis focuses on the Chapel of San Zeno in Santa Prassede, interpreting the mosaic decorations within through the lens of Medieval light theology. The intent is to answer questions surrounding the interaction between the window and the mosaics within the chapel, the importance of light in medieval aesthetics and how they are reflected in the chapel, and how these theologies change or give a deeper reading of the iconography. In particular two major aspects of the chapel will be addressed, the window and its mosaic program and the scene directly across from it. The study establishes the mosaic program within the chapel with short section by section descriptions before focusing on the two most important mosaics within the overall scheme, the hetoimasia and the deisis window. This window is one of the primary focuses of the thesis, as it is not only a source of light within the chapel but is recognized and acknowledged by the figures around it, turning it into the final figure in the Byzantine composition, the deisis. Late Antique and Medieval scholars provide evidence for the importance of light in the Middle Ages up to and continuing after the ninth century at the time of the chapel’s construction. The importance of the materials used in relation to light, in both the Byzantine world and Medieval West is discussed and inscriptions from other churches of the same era used as comparanda along with structures of a similar type and with similar arrangements. These elements are then brought together to reinterpret the established mosaic program and argue in favor of light as a unifying element within the chapel. Additionally some hypotheses of the original form of the deisis window are considered.Item Curating the Eternal Return: Giorgio de Chirico’s Piazza d’Italia con statua (1937)(2022) Springer, Anna Magdalena; Linford, Sarah; Gianni, IlariaChronological display is a fundamental feature of the public art museum, creating a distinct pathfor the visitor to follow as they walk through the history of art. Recent scholarship in the field ofmuseum studies has drawn the use of chronology in museum or exhibition display into focus, reevaluatingthe positive and negative aspects of the historical narrative. Given that much ofGiorgio de Chirico’s (1888-1978) Metaphysical Art embodies the reconceptualization of time,the analysis of the exhibition of his work throughout the past century allows for the study of howthe concept of time, and chronology, is addressed curatorially in permanent displays andtemporary exhibitions. An analysis of how de Chirico’s paintings have been inserted into variousnarratives and exhibition chronologies in selected Italian and foreign museums will providecomparative material, particularly from institutions like the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna eContemporanea in Rome and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which have famously (orinfamously) abandoned the use of chronology as an organizational structure for their collectionsand exhibitions. Piazza d’Italia con statua, a painting created in 1970 but inscribed by de Chiricowith the date 1937, acts as a focal point for this analysis of his exhibition history and thereception of his work, from which a close exploration of the agency of the curator and that of anartwork itself can be made.Item John Ruskin: Piazza di Santa Maria del Pianto, Rome, 1840(2021) Mandell, Kristopher Carl; Georgi, Karen; Linford, SarahUpon John Ruskin’s first trip to Rome in 1840, when he was twenty-one years old, he created the drawing Piazza di Santa Maria del Pianto. The drawing is a picturesque view, a view Ruskin had been searching for his entire trip to the Continent. Ruskin at this time was ill, broken hearted, and questioning his direction in life. These factors, as well as his exposure to new artistic methods and theories, by way of the artists he met in Rome, catapulted him into a crisis that would have lasting effects on his life and work. From Ruskin’s autobiography Praeterita, it can be seen that Piazza di Santa Maria del Pianto was a defensive declaration of his views of art. The image was part of a process that enabled him to define his future voice as an artist and critic. Piazza di Santa Maria del Pianto was located just outside the main gate of Rome’s Jewish Ghetto. The ghetto was enforced by Pope Paul IV in 1555 and remained in effect until the Unification of Italy in 1870. The ghetto was subsequently demolished in the early twentieth century. Ruskin’s drawing was completed, form an on-site sketch, while the ghetto was still enforced. In addition to the importance of the drawing in the context of Ruskin’s life and work, Piazza di Santa Maria del Pianto has great significance to Jewish and Roman history in that Ruskin has preserved a nineteenth-century view of the primary piazza of Rome’s Jewish Ghetto that is no longer attainable.Item The Cappella degli Angeli in the Gesù: Angels as Intercessors for Souls in Purgatory(2022) Savage, Michelle; Smyth, Carolyn; Lauf, CorneliaIn 1579, Federico Zuccari completed his work on the cupola celling fresco of Last Judgement Day in the Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Fifteen years later, 1594 Zuccari was commissioned by the Jesuits (in the person of Cardinal Farnese) to decorate an entire chapel in the Gesù in Rome. This chapel may be found in the third niche on the right-hand side of the Gesù and it is called the Cappella degli Angeli [Chapel of the Angels]. The patrons of the chapel were Curzio and Defini Vettori. Zuccari’s bravura lay in his ability to create a personal monument for the family, yet at the same time, an easily understood iconographic progam which has stood the test of time for its beauty and extraordinary interpretation of the writings of the Jesuit missionaries and church founders. In particular, the theme of angels was developed, as a highly sophisticated appeal to a largely illiterate Roman public, schooled, howeer, in the lore of images. Angel iconography in Southern Italy has its origins or is first manifested in an ancient fresco of the Seven Archangels in the Cappella Maggiore in Palermo. Art historian Gauvin Alexander Bailey notes, “the devotion of the Seven Archangels had been brought to Rome first by the Sicilian prelate Antonio Lo Duca.” The Papal authorities became interested in the Cult of the Angels along with the Queen of the Martyrs and this iconography began to flourish in Catholic churches in Rome. The frescos Zuccari paints in the Cappella degli Angeli are a representation of Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell, themes which derive directly from the writings of the earliest members of the Society of Jesus including Ignatius of Loyola, Roberto Bellarmino and Luigi Gonzaga. The primary texts of the founding fathers of the Society of Jesus constitute the Meditation Exercises and Evangelicae Imageines. They document a cult of angels with ancient origins, which was adapted and given new interpretations by the later sixteenth century. The Cappella degli Angeli followed on the heels of the first church dedicated to this veneration —Santa Maria degli Angeli, built in the Baths of Diocletian and was designed by Lo Duca and Michelangelo. The cult of the angels was subsequently manifested in many other churches in Rome and this specific iconography became a reflection of the teachings of the Jesuit order.Item The Vault Decoration of the Sala di Constantino: Tommaso Laureti’s Visual Manifesto of his Artistic Methods, Principles, and Theory(2021) Holman, Lauren; Linford, Sarah; Smyth, CarolynIn 1582, the construction of the high vault in the Sala di Constantino wascompleted, prompting Pope Gregory XIII to commission Tommaso Laureti to decoratethe newly built ceiling with lavish frescoes. The vault’s pictorial structure includes aseries of spandrels and lunettes that encompass a central, rectangular panel. The centralpanel and the decorations surrounding it differ in style and purpose but contribute to theroom’s overall themes— the exaltation of Constantine the Great and the Catholic Churchin the aftermath of the Council of Trent. These frescoes are prevalent in art historicalscholarship for their political and historical significance; however, their formal andstylistic aspects have been neglected, especially as concerns their position in the debatesabout artistic theory and methods of the Cinquecento. This thesis attempts to interpretLaureti’s artistic decisions as a part of larger discussions about the definition and functionof disegno. Specifically, this thesis will argue that the various visual elements of thevault, along with the inherent purpose of the frescoes, expound Laureti’s particularartistic methods, principles, and art theory as rebuttals to both Vasari and Zuccaro. Ananalysis of Laureti’s artistic training prior to the papal commission confirms hisallegiance to a certain conception of disegno. After the papal commission, his positionand pedagogy at the Accademia di San Luca solidify his endeavor to assert his specificartistic principles and methods as the heirs to correct artistic practice. Combining primaryand secondary sources and object-based research with a critical analysis of the vaultdecoration, this project draws attention to the unique aspects of the frescoes and arguesthat they are the amalgamated components of Laureti’s most fully developed visualmanifesto in the context of heated debates about artistic theory and methods.Item Promising Monsters: Collecting History at the Ottocento Villa Torlonia on the Via Nomentana, Rome(2019) Shumate, Michal Lynn; Georgi, Karen; Foster, LauraThis thesis investigates the early nineteenth century decorative program of the Villa Torlonia on the Via Nomentana in Rome, in particular the historicist rooms by painter and architect Giovanni Battista Caretti, as carried out during the 1830s under the patronage of Alessandro Torlonia. The neo-medieval Room of the Italian Poets and Artists is taken up as a case study in Rome's gothic revival, while the rooms as a whole are employed to contribute to the understanding of historicism at the time within the Roman decorative context. I propose that Caretti's depiction of gothic space as part of a collection of other historicist rooms is a Roman decorative phenomenon specific to the early nineteenth century, and of which the Villa Torlonia is an early and quintessential example. In order to address the singularity of this decorative approach, I demonstrate how its subsequent reception has been affected by the loss of its sister site, the Palazzo Torlonia in Piazza Venezia, which was demolished in 1902. To this end, considerable time will be spent on formal elements of the Room of the Poets – both those that remain to be viewed today and those that have been lost to time – in order to elaborate on what has been described in the literature as a pastiche. The time and place in which this property was decorated places it both at the intersection and on the margins of a number of far-reaching and overarching scholarly discussions and disciplines. This thesis brings together research from these various fields, from interior decoration to gothic revival to theories of collecting, in addition to the literature on the Villa Torlonia itself. The latter tends to be written through a museological or conservational lens, with the physical condition of the villa alongside historical and biographical details taking center stage; these publications have invaluable documentation, but there previously existed no art historical or visual analysis of the period rooms beyond general conservation and connoisseurship. Because the villa complex is still in the process of being restored and made available to the public, it is not surprising that a conceptual and synchronic account of the site is still outstanding. Part of the contribution of this thesis is to place the Palazzo Torlonia alongside the Villa Torlonia, and to consider the decorative program and space of the Casino Nobile in its entirety as well as within the context of the larger grounds and garden buildings. In thinking of these rooms as a collection of souvenirs, they are by extension a series of discrete compartments in a grand neoclassical cabinet. I argue throughout the paper for a consideration of the Room of the Poets and its counterparts as deliberate gestures rather than as a haphazard eclecticism with which they often find themselves labeled.Item Hidden Spaces, Hidden Cultic Practices: The Underworld Topography of Ancient Rome(2022) Lawless, Jennifer Anne; Corrado, Crispin; Koehler, JensAncient Rome’s visible topographical features contributed to the fabric of ancient Roman culture and identity. Though marginally studied, the underground topography of ancient Rome was equally important to the Romans. This study aims to both locate and plot topographical connectors within the city of Rome utilized to venerate chthonic gods more often than we are conventionally led to understand. Exploring the underground topography of ancient Rome will establish the relationship that everyday Romans had with these subterranean spaces. The primary link connecting the two realms were defixones, ancient curse tablets used to influence events supernaturally. The ancients navigated across the underworld through intercession and petition at topographical markers visible on the city’s surface. These markers, often dedicated to the upper world’s deities, reflected the ancients’ devotion and reliance on their gods, demonstrating that Roman religion weighed heavily on mapping the city. Defixones’ deposit locations are particularly imperative in building the topography of subterranean Rome as they reveal that the ancients routinely communicated with their underworld divinities through unofficially charted access points within the city that were more frequent than scholarship recognizes.Item Jannis Kounellis & Theatre: Through Space and Time(2022) Nasonova, Polina; Linford, Sarah; Gianni, IlariaThis thesis focuses on a neglected aspect of Kounellis’ work: the relationship between his artistic practice and theatre between the 1960s and the 1990s. After reconstructing Jannis Kounellis’ scenographical work for New Italian Theatre in the late 1960s, and his life-long collaboration with a theatre director Carlo Quadrucci, this research critically situates his practice within the contemporary theatre’s engagement with space as well as the phenomenology of the body. The artist’s interest in the form and temporality of the image, and of action, and the way his self-declared lifelong interest in theater and theatricality affected his own Arte Povera practice, revolutionized the use of non-traditional materials and modes of viewer engagement. This thesis aims not only to shed light on an unstudied dimension of Kounellis’ work, his productions as a scenographer, but also to consider the ways in which this life-long engagement might reframe contemporary art history’s understanding of the artist through the analysis of Kounellis’ work with grand-scale installations in the 1990s.Item Reframing Antinous(2022) LaManna, Kathleen Rose; Hansen, Inge; Salvadori, SharonAntinous has been the subject of scholarly fascination for centuries—due in no small part to the ubiquity of his image. He is the most frequently portrayed person in ancient art aside from Augustus and Hadrian. In this thesis, I advocate for revisiting the subject of his portraiture using methods established in the recent “material turn” in anthropological studies. By returning to the material of the sculptural corpus itself, it becomes clear that the large majority of portraits of Antinous with known provenance were discovered in elite second-century villas. This thesis explores the implications of that setting on interpretations of the portraits, which will be approached as social agents capable of impacting the humans and things around them. My central case studies are the assemblage of Antinous portraits discovered at Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli and the acrolithic cult statue of the youth from the villa of Herodes Atticus at Eva/Loukou. What can the inclusion of these portraits within the villa realm tell us about elite behavior and social expectations? What can it tell us about how Antinous functioned semantically within the world of the Second Sophistic? Ultimately, my aim is to continue to move studies of Antinous away from unproductive considerations of his biography and to instead investigate the opportunities that arise from engaging with the materiality of his depictions.Item Edwin Howland Blashfield and the British Arts and Crafts Movement(2021) Sprague, Laura; Georgi, Karen; Linford, SarahEdwin Howland Blashfield, in spite of his activity in arts revived by the British Arts and Craftsmovement, is in current literature regarded solely as part of the American Renaissance. Throughthe use of Edwin Blashfield’s archive at the New York Historical Society, the letters on thedecorating process from Library of Congress Manuscripts Division between Blashfield andBernard Green, by scouring contemporary writing referencing Blashfield, and by comparingBlashfield’s lectures and articles to the lectures, books, and articles of John Ruskin, WilliamMorris, and Walter Crane, I have found that Blashfield has indeed been influenced by the BritishArts and Crafts movement. Not only was Blashfield influenced by British Arts and Crafts, buthis contemporaries recognized that link. Through his writing, murals, and even his personal lifeBlashfield demonstrated a strong connection to the British Arts and Crafts movement.Item “The Citadel of Culture”: The Italian Academy’s Unrealized Urban Plan to Redevelop Rome’s Lungara District(2021) Beckmann, Matthew; Linford, Sarah; Foster, Laura"The Reale Accademia d’Italia (the Royal Academy of Italy) was an Italian Fascist national cultural institution with the mission of reshaping the Italian intelligentsia’s cultural and scientific production to the Fascist regime’s needs. The Italian Academy was headquartered in Rome’s Villa Farnesina, a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture located on Via della Lungara. The Italian Academy’s unrealized 1939 proposal to redevelop the entire Lungara district shows a desire to ‘reframe’ the Villa Farnesina and aggrandize the Academy’s physical position within the urban layout of Rome. The plan would have replaced the Regina Coeli prison with a monumental access route to the crest of the Janiculum. It would have created a visual and transportation connection between the secular “sacred area” of Garibaldini monuments atop the Janiculum and Rome’s bustling city center.Since the 1870’s Italian city planners had eyed the Lungara district for redevelopment, but it was the Fascist regime that was finally willing to carry out the necessary destruction to redevelop the area. The Academy intervened with their own Lungara redevelopment proposal because the institution wanted control of their neighborhood. The Academy’s proposal was crafted by the famous architect and urbanist Marcello Piacentini and approved by Benito Mussolini in late 1939. The project was set to be executed during the mid-1940s but was slowly given up on during Italy’s increasingly desperate situation during World War II.The Lungara redevelopment proposal would have clustered various Italian cultural institutions into the redesigned Lungara district, in physical proximity to the Italian Academy. This would have helped the Italian Academy perform its mission of coordinating Italian cultural production. The unrealized Lungara proposal is an urban planning expression of the Fascist regime’s desire for a totalitarian Italy.Item Behold: An Interdisciplinary Examination of the Harley Roll T.11(2022) Boynton, Jessica Nicole; Yawn, Lila; Smyth, CarolynThe Harley Roll T. 11 is a late fifteenth-century manuscript recognized by scholars thatpossess a variety of functions, one of which is a birth girdle – a sacred object that extends Eternalcomfort to women in childbirth. However, due to its various contents, not at all scholarshipagrees that the Harley Roll T.11 was or could have functioned as a birth girdle. Thisdisconnection and simultaneous dependence between the manuscript’s functions and its contents,lead me to ask the question, are manuscripts like the Harley Roll T.11 properly and whollycategorized, and, if not, why? Therefore, this reexamination addresses scholarship discrepanciesregarding the Harley Roll T.11 and its birth-girding function through the sociological lens ofmedieval reception. In addition, the physical properties of such a rare object deserve closerinspection, thus creating a copy of the manuscript will aid in my research.