Webinar 1

EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR | “Donatello: From Artisan to Artist”
Presented by Dr. John Paoletti
with Additional Commentary by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

The fifteenth-century Florentine sculptor, Donatello, is well known for the volume and beauty of his work. Less well known is the role he played in changing the conception of artistic production from craft to what we now call art. This webinar will consider these factors lying behind one of the most extraordinary sculptural productions of the Italian Renaissance or of any time, leading the sixteenth-century biographer, Giorgio Vasari, to equate the genius of Donatello with that of Michelangelo.

John Paoletti received his Ph.D in art history from Yale University. He taught the history of Italian Renaissance art and of the art of the twentieth century at Wesleyan University from 1972 to 2009, having previously taught at Bryn Mawr College and Dartmouth College. He was a William R. Kenan Professor of the Humanities at Wesleyan from 2005 until his retirement. He received the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching at Wesleyan in 1997 and the Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award from the College Art Association in 2003. He was a Fellow at the School of Historical Studies, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton in the spring of 2001 and Visiting Professor at the Villa I Tatti, Harvard’s Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence, in the late fall of 2008. He is currently serving as a member of the Committee on Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. From 1996-2000 he was the editor-in-chief of The Art Bulletin, the journal of record in art history in the United States. He served as guest curator for exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Yale Center for British Art, as well as at Wesleyan. He lectured on a number of occasions at the Metropolitan Museum and for the Friends of Florence. He is also a lecturer for Smithsonian tours.

His book, Michelangelo’s David: Florentine History and Civic Identity, was published in 2015; it uses the popular culture and civic history of Florence to open new ways of interpreting the David. He is the co-author with Gary Radke of Art in Renaissance Italy, now in its fourth edition. With Roger Crum he is the co-editor of and contributing author to Renaissance Florence: a Social History, (New York, 2006). He has contributed catalogue essays for exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, the National Gallery of Art and the Nürnberg Kunsthalle. He has contributed articles on Italian sculpture and Medici patronage to a number of essay collections and festschriften, and to The Art Bulletin, the Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, Artibus et Historiae, Pantheon, and Renaissance Quarterly. He is currently at work on Medici patronage during the fifteenth century and on a monograph on the contemporary German artist Georg Baselitz.

The webinar will include a 45-minute lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Webinar 2

EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR | “Do this in Memory of Me: The Last Supper in Italian Renaissance Art”
Presented by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

Although Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” is by far the most iconic version of the subject, various other celebrated Italian Renaissance artists have interpreted it as well. Join Dr. Rocky for this exclusive webinar where he will explore the evolution of the Last Supper image in Italian art with works by artists such as Giotto, Duccio, Ghiberti, Del Castagno, Ghirlandaio, Del Sarto, Tintoretto, Veronese and Bernini.

The webinar will include a 45-minute lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Webinar 3

EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR | “The Medici Metaverse: Immersive Renaissance Realities”
Presented by Quentin Hardy
With Additional Commentary by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

The Metaverse. Virtual Reality. The Blockchain, Crypto, and NFTs. You’ve probably heard of these techno wonders, and how they will change everything. What they don’t tell you is how much of this has happened before, or how Renaissance is filled with pageants, performances, pilgrimages and pecuniary misadventures that “changed everything,” in ways remarkably like today’s tech miracles.

Quentin Hardy, the head of editorial at Google, spent several decades covering technology, finance, and the habits of the very rich for The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The New York Times. His previous talks have covered the Renaissance technology revolution in print, and the Renaissance rise of the artist as celebrity.

The webinar will include a 45-minute lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Webinar 4

EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR | “Strictly Platonic: Marsilio Ficino and Florence’s Golden Age of Philosophy” 
Presented by Ross King
with Additional Commentary by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was a true ‘Renaissance Man’: a philosopher, astrologer, theologian, physician, translator, advisor to princes, inspiration to artists, founder of the Platonic Academy in Florence—and originator of the concept of ‘Platonic love’. He was also the bestselling author of books on diet, meditation, and how to live a healthy life in old age. This lecture will introduce Ficino’s spectacular career, looking at both his massive importance in his own time and his continuing relevance today.

Ross King is the award-winning author of numerous books on Italian and French art and history, including Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. His biography Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power has been called a “convincing portrait of one of the most misunderstood thinkers of all time.” His most recent book, published in April 2021, is The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance.

The webinar will include a 45-minute lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.