Professor Guido Rebecchini

Professor of Sixteenth-Century Southern European Art

Having read History of Art at the Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, I then moved to the Università degli Studi di Siena, where I was awarded a MA degree on the ‘Tradizione dell’Antico nel Medioevo e nel Rinascimento’. In 2000, I have completed my PhD at the Warburg Institute and have subsequently taught at the Università di Siena (2001-2009) and at the study-abroad centres in Florence of New York University and Syracuse University  (2010-2012). In September 2013, I have joined The Courtauld, where I am now Professor in Renaissance and Early Modern Art. I have been Associate Dean for Students (2019-2021) and am currently Head of the Research Degree.

In my research, I have pursued three main strands: the first focuses on the court of Mantua. Using a wealth of unpublished documents, including correspondence, contracts and inventories, my studies have shed light on previously unexplored aspects of the Gonzaga patronage and collecting, and on the artistic interests of the Mantuan elites. Moreover, I have published extensively on Giulio Romano and especially on his role as designer of sculpture and silverware.

The second strand of my research focuses on Medicean Florence. In particular, I have contributed to deconstruct the sixteenth-century historiography on the Medici family unveiling internal fractures and how art was used to forge a narrative of dynastic and political legitimacy. My most recent article in I Tatti Studies investigates the fraught transmission of the Medici inheritance, which I interpret as a means of crafting a dynastic identity and displaying political power.

Finally, the third strand of my research examines on the role played by Pope Paull III Farnese in the renewal of Rome after the devastating Sack of 1527. My study explores the multi-layered strategies adopted by the pope to refashion a city, including ephemeral and permanent interventions in the urban fabric.

Currently, I am developing a new long-term project on the Sack of Rome of 1527, which will culminate in a major exhibition in Rome in 2027.

Picture of Guido Rebecchini
Email Academia.edu

Teaching 2023-25

  • MA History of Art: Continuity and Innovation: Reframing Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo (with Dr Irene Brooke, and Dr Barbara Furlotti)

Teaching 2022-23

  • MA History of Art: Continuity and Innovation: Reframing Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo (with Dr Scott Nethersole, Dr Irene Brooke, and Dr Barbara Furlotti)
  • BA1 Varieties of Renaissance Art

Teaching 2021-22

  • MA History of Art: Continuity and Innovation: Reframing Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo (with Dr Scott Nethersole, Dr Irene Brooke, and Dr Barbara Furlotti)
  • BA3 Special Option: Inventing Michelangelo: Disegno, Painting, Sculpture and the Myth of the Artist

Teaching 2020-21

  • MA History of Art: Continuity and Innovation: Reframing Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo (with Dr Scott Nethersole, Dr Irene Brooke, and Dr Barbara Furlotti)
  • BA3 Special Option: Inventing Michelangelo: Disegno, Painting, Sculpture and the Myth of the Artist

Teaching 2019-20

  • MA History of Art: Continuity and Innovation: Reframing Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo (with Dr Scott Nethersole, Dr Barbara Furlotti and Dr Irene Brooke
  • BA3 Special Option: Inventing Michelangelo: Disegno, Painting, Sculpture and the Myth of the Artist

Teaching 2018-19

Teaching 2017-18

Teaching 2016-17

  • BA2 Constellations: Questioning the Italian Renaissance: Art in Italy from 1470 to 1527 (with Dr Scott Nethersole)
  • BA3 Special Option: Inventing Michelangelo: Disegno, Painting, Sculpture and the Myth of the Artist
  • MA History of Art: Continuity and Innovation: Reframing Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo (with Dr Scott Nethersole, Dr Barbara Furlotti and Dr Paula Nuttall)

PhD Supervision

Current

  • Emma Iadanza, The Pazzi Ascendancy: Patronage, Network, and Identity of a Florentine Family, ca. 1460-1520
  • Alison Braybrooks, Stucco sculpture in Rome 1590-1620
  • Alexis Nanavaty, “La Fortuna dell’artista”: Battista Zelotti as artist and collaborator at the Palladian Villas
  • Tanya Klowden (co-supervised with Dr Stephen Whiteman), Interconnected Identities: Alonso Sánchez Coello, Sofonisba Anguissola, and Portraiture in the Court of Philip II of Spain
  • Marco Mansi (co-supervised with Dr Ketty Gottardo), Sixteenth-Century Florentine sketchbooks of landscape drawings
  • Julia von Zandvoort, The production of tapestry for Italian patrons in sixteenth-century Antwerp
  • Jasmine Clark, “Anticamente moderni e modernamente antichi: sixteenth-century Italian designs for silver vessels and dishes” (Part-Time)

Completed

  • Anna Chiara Giusa, “The Politics of Style: Artistic ‘Bilingualism’ in Messina During the First Half of the Sixteenth Century”(2024)
  • Adriana Concin, “The Habsburg-Medici Wedding of 1565: Art, Diplomacy and Display” (2021)
  • Saida Bondini, ‘Decorating Chapels: Networks of Family Patronage in Late Fifteenth-Century Bologna. Between Private Piety and Political Self-definition’, co-supervised with Dr Nicolas Bock (Université de Lausanne) (2020)
  • Anna Merlini, ‘Symbolic images and the Production of Knowledge: Achille Bocchi, Ulisse Aldrovandi and Academic Networks in Sixteenth-Century Bologna’ (2018)
  • Bryony Bartlett-Rawlings, ‘Nicoletto da Modena and the Centres of Early Italian Print Production 1490-1530’, co-supervised with Dr Scott Nethersole (2019)

Research interests

  • Sixteenth-century Italian art, politics and urbanism, especially in Rome
  • Courtly art and culture, with a focus on Mantua
  • Medicean Florence
  • Giulio Romano
  • History of collecting and antiquarian studies
  • Drawing, design, disegno
  • Techniques and materials

Recent publications

Giulio Romano. La forza delle cose, exh. cat., eds. B. Furlotti and G. Rebecchini with the collaboration of A. Geremicca, Mantua, Palazzo Te, 8 October 2022-8 January 2023, Venice, Marsilio, 2022.

Giulio Romano. La forza delle cose

The Art of Experiment: Parmigianino at the Courtauld, exh. cat., eds. K. Gottardo and G. Rebecchini, London, Paul Holberton Publishing, 2022.

The Art of Experiment: Parmigianino at The Courtauld

The Rome of Paul III (1534-1549): Art Ritual and Urban Renewal, Turnhout, Harvey Miller Publishing, 2020.

http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9781912554430-1

Giulio Romano: Art and Desire, exhibition catalogue, eds. Barbara Furlotti, Guido Rebecchini and Linda Wolk-Simon, Mantua, Palazzo Te, 6 October 2019-6 January 2020, Milan, Electa, 2019. Italian edition: Giulio Romano. Arte e desiderio, Milan, Electa, 2019.

Giulio Romano: Arte e Desiderio

Books, essays, articles and reviews

Mantua, collecting and Giulio Romano

  • “A Bronze Roundel for the Mantuan Court: Towards an Oeuvre of Gian Marco Cavalli”, The Burlington Magazine, CLXIII, September 2021, pp. 798-805.
  • “Un’amica di Isabella d’Este: Margherita Cantelmi, il suo studiolo e il monastero di Santa Maria della Presentazione al Tempio”, in Itinera chartarum. 150 anni dell’Archivio di Stato di Mantova. Saggi in onore di Daniela Ferrari, eds. Roberta Piccinelli, Deanna Shemek, Luisa Onesta Tamassia, Milan, Silvana editoriale, 2019, pp. 343-347.
  • “Charles I’s Visit to Madrid”, in Charles I: King and Collector, exh. cat., eds. Per Rumberg and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 2018, 50-53.
  • Co-authored with Barbara Furlotti (50%) “’Rare and Unique in This World’: Mantegna’s ‘Triumph’ and the Gonzaga Collection”, in Charles I: King and Collector, exh. cat., eds. Per Rumberg and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 2018, 54-59.
  • “Agostino Veneziano’s Suite of Three Women with Ancient Vases”, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 92, 2016, 2, special issue: Investigating Marcantonio Raimondi, ed. E. Wouk, pp. 129-144.
  • Guido Rebecchini and Edward Wouk, “Biographical Notes on Marcantonio Raimondi and the publisher Il Baviera”, Edward Wouk (ed.), Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael and the Image Multiplied, exhib. cat., Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2016, pp. 12-15.
  • Evidence: Inventories’, in The Display of Art in the Long Renaissance, ed. G. Feigenbaum, Los Angeles, Getty Publications, 2014, pp. 27-28.
  • ‘Pietro Bembo e Baldassarre Castiglione: teorici dell’arte e collezionisti’, in Pietro Bembo e le arti, conference proceedings, eds. G. Beltramini, H. Burns and D. Gasparotto, Venice, Marsilio, 2013, pp. 257-266.
  • ‘Giulio Romano e la produzione di argenti per Ferrante ed Ercole Gonzaga’, in Prospettiva, 146, 2012, pp. 32-43.
  • ‘Le biblioteche di Battista Fiera e Giovan Benedetto Lampridio’, Civiltà mantovana, 134, 2012, special issue: Scritti in memoria di Clifford Malcolm Brown, eds P. Tosetti Grandi and A.M. Lorenzoni, Mantua, Il Bulino, 2012, pp. 109-124.
  • ‘Portraits by Objects. Three ‘Studioli’ in Sixteenth-Century Mantua’, in Mantova e il Rinascimento italiano: saggi in onore di David S. Chambers, eds P. Jackson and G. Rebecchini, Mantua, Sometti, 2011, pp. 77-94.
  • (with Dr Barbara Furlotti), The Art and Architecture of Mantua. Eight Centuries of Patronage and Collecting, London, Thames and Hudson, 2008. (Other editions: Il Rinascimento a Mantova, Florence, Giunti, 2008; The Art of Mantua. Art and Patronage in the Renaissance, Los Angeles, Getty Publications, 2008; L’Art à Mantoue, Paris, Hazan, 2008).
  • ‘I committenti dell’Antico tra modelli romani e classicismo lombardo’, in Bonacolsi l’Antico. Uno scultore nella Mantova di Andrea Mantegna e di Isabella d’Este, exhib. cat., eds D. Gasparotto and F. Trevisani, Milan, Electa, 2008, pp. 36-43.
  • ‘Qualche precisazione e un punto fermo per Ippolito Costa (1506-1535)’, Prospettiva, 128, 2007, pp. 58-61.
  • ‘Sculture e scultori nella Mantova di Giulio Romano. 2. Giovan Battista Scultori e il monumento di Girolamo Andreasi (con una precisazione per Prospero Clemente)’, Prospettiva, 110-111, 2003, pp. 130-139.
  • “Some Aspects of Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga’s Collections”, The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 66, 2003, pp. 289-296.
  • Private Collectors in Mantua. 1500-1630, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2002.
  • ‘Sculture e scultori nella Mantova di Giulio Romano. 1. Bernardino Germani e il sepolcro di Pietro Strozzi (con il cognome di Giovan Battista Scultori)’, Prospettiva, 108, 2002, pp. 65-79.
  • ‘Exchanges of Works of Art at the Court of Federico II Gonzaga with an Appendix on Flemish Art’, special issue: Art and Culture in Renaissance Mantua, ed. Molly Bourne, Renaissance Studies, 16, 2002, pp. 381-391.
  • ‘La corte e la città. Scambi e interferenze tra collezionisti privati mantovani e i Gonzaga’,in Gonzaga. La Celeste Galeria. Le raccolte, exhib. cat., ed. R. Morselli, Milan 2002, pp. 620-642.
  • ‘Further Evidence on the Books of Baldassarre Castiglione’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 63, 2000, pp. 271-276.
  • ‘The Book Collection and Other Possessions of Baldassarre Castiglione’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 61, 1998, pp. 17-52.
  • ‘Castiglione and Erasmus. Towards a Reconciliation?’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 61, 1998, pp. 258-260.
  • ‘New Light on Two “Venuses” by Correggio’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 60, 1997, pp. 272-275.
  • ‘Tiziano e Mantova: la Cena in Emmaus per Nicola Maffei’, Venezia Cinquecento, 10, 1995, pp. 41-68.

Florence and the Medici

  • “Dynastic Conflicts and European Politics in the Transmission of the Medici Inheritance”, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, XXV, 1, 2022, pp. 133-165.
  • ‘Les débuts de Jean Du Bellay à Rome, la cour d’Hippolyte de Médicis et le rôle de Giovan francesco Valier’, in Le cardinal Jean Du Bellay . Diplomatie et culture dans l’Europe de la Renaissance, eds. C. Michon and L. Petris, (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014) pp. 269-281.
  • ‘La politica dello stile: il giovane Vasari e la cerchia di Ippolito de’ Medici’, in Giorgio Vasari e il cantiere delle Vite del 1550, conference proceedings, eds. B. Agosti and S. Ginzburg, (Venice: Marsilio, 2013), pp. 13-27.
  • ‘Beyond Florence’s walls. A List of Evaluations of Buildings to Be Demolished in 1529-1530’, Getty Research Journal, 3, 2011, pp. 165-170.
  • «Un altro Lorenzo». Il cardinale Ippolito de’ Medici tra Firenze e Roma (1510-1535), Venice, Marsilio, 2010.
  • Le ville dei Medici da Firenze a Roma, Rome, Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, 2008.
  • ‘Fonti mantovane sul conflitto fra Alessandro de’ Medici e i fuoriusciti fiorentini durante la visita a Napoli di Carlo V nel 1536’, Archivio Storico Italiano, 577, 1999, pp. 517-528.

Rome, visual culture and urbanism

  • “Paolo III e l’officina delle arti a Roma”, in I Farnese. Architettura, arte, potere, exhib. cat., ed. Simone Verde, Milan, Electa, 2022, pp. 48-53.
  • “L’entrée triomphale de Paul III à Rome en 1538. Politique, identité et rénovation urbaine“, in La Cour en fête dans l’Europe des Valois, eds. Oriane Beaufils and Luisa Capodieci, Tours, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2022, pp. 34-36.
  • ‘Space, Memory and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Rome’, I Tatti Studies: Studies in The Italian Renaissance, special issue: Street Life, Street Culture, eds. G. Clarke and F. Nevola, 16, 1-2, 2013, pp. 153-179.
  • ‘For Pleasure and for Entertainment: A Rustic Fountain in Sixteenth-Century Rome and a Project by Giovanni Mangone’, in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, eds M. Israëls and L.A. Waldman, Milan, Officina Libraria, 2013, pp. 463-473.
  • ‘Michelangelo e le mura di Roma’, in Michelangelo architetto a Roma disegni della Casa Buonarroti di Firenze, exhib. cat., eds M. Mussolin and P. Ragionieri, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), Silvana editoriale, 2009, pp. 106-110.
  • (Co-edited with Fabrizio Nevola), Urban History, 37, 2010, 1, special issue: Locating Communities in the Early Modern Italian City.
  • ‘After the Medici: The New Rome of Pope Paul III Farnese’, I Tatti Studies, 11, 2008, pp. 147-200.
  • ‘Giovan Francesco Arrivabene a Roma nel 1550. Una nuova descrizione del giardino del cardinale Federico Cesi’, Pegasus. Berliner Beiträge zum Nachleben der Antike (Bulletin of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), 2, 2000, pp. 41-60.

Citations