art history

July 3, 2026
CFP: Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italian Women & Visual Culture (RSA 2027)

This session investigates how medieval Italian women lived their lives both in compliance with and in circumvention of the societal assumptions circulating about their nature and capabilities, read through their relationships to visual images and performative media. Papers will address this topic through two lenses: 1) ways that gendered religious and social beliefs were encoded in late medieval-early Renaissance visual imagery and performance and 2) how women of different social and economic strata negotiated regulations that defined and constrained them in the ways they engaged with these media.

The roles of women as artists, patrons, and audiences for visual culture enjoy extensive in-depth study for northern medieval and Renaissance cultures since the mid 20th century. Studies of women’s participation in the visual culture of late medieval/Early Renaissance Italy, itself an often-marginalized field, are much rarer. This session seeks to help redress that imbalance by focusing on late medieval-early Renaissance Italian women as patrons, but also as audiences of artistic projects and performative visual media, and the ways women responded to or helped shape the imagery and ideas those works projected.

Papers are welcome from scholars in all stages of their careers whose research focuses on Italian images of and/or used by women, ideas about women constructed or reflected in religious drama, or sermon literature that address women or ideas about women in the 14th-early 15th centuries.

If you are interested, please send an abstract for a 20-minute paper (max 300 words) and a short c.v. by JULY 10 to jsteinhoff@uh.edu

The session configuration will be announced on or before August 4.

June 23, 2026
The Medieval Southern Italy Working Group

The Medieval Southern Italy Working Group

The Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” is delighted to announce that with Maria Harvey, we have launched the Medieval Southern Italy Working Group, dedicated to fostering exchange and collaboration among art historians of medieval southern Italy and those curious about venturing south.

We plan on workshopping talks, syllabi, publications, thesis chapters, and other academic endeavors, in Italian or in English, and to meet two or three times a semester online and once a year in person in Naples.

We would be very glad to hear from art historians (including graduate students), curators, and conservators interested in joining this working group. Please send name, e-mail, and institutional affiliation (if applicable), and brief details of particular areas of interest to harveymx@jmu.edu

Please feel free to share this news with anyone who may be interested.

Website: https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/projects/medieval-southern-italy-working-group/

June 23, 2026
CFP: Venice and its Mainland Empire (at RSA 2027)

CFP: Venice and its Mainland Empire (at RSA 2027)

While the Venetian Republic was creating a stato da mar in the Mediterranean to ensure its economic security and military defense, it was also expanding its territories in the Terraferma — the Veneto and the Friuli — with its political authority framed as a mutually beneficial system of reciprocity and abundance. In 1483, the Venetian diarist Marin Sanudo described a fresco on the public loggia in the Veneto town of Rovereto that featured the lion of St Mark and an inscription: “I am the lion, of whom no one possesses a broader world empire; the land and sea obey me, and I administer justice: and beware to those men who do evil, my sword will avenge their crimes.”
In recent years Save Venice has expanded its conservation efforts into the Terraferma with such masterpieces as Titian’s Annunciation in Treviso and Donatello’s equestrian monument to Gattamelata in Padua. This session, sponsored by Save Venice, invites papers exploring the political, cultural and artistic reach of Venice in its Terraferma territories from the fourteenth through the seventeenth century. Possible topics include civic infrastructure, public monuments and paintings; portraits; commissions by Venetian officials; villa life, and male and female Terraferma artists in Venice and Venetian artists in the Terraferma.

Prospective speakers should send their full name, current affiliation, and email address, along with their paper title (15 words maximum), abstract (200 word maximum), and resume (2 pages maximum), PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected) to Sarah Blake McHam (sarah.blake.mcham@gmail.com) and Patricia Fortini Brown (pbrown@Princeton.edu) by July 15. Applicants will be notified by July 31.

For more information, click here: https://www.rsa.org/page/RSAAnnualMeetingCFPIndex

Poster for New Research on Venetian Art — A Study Day for Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Researchers.

June 23, 2026
New Research on Venetian Art — A Study Day for Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Researchers

The Venetian Art History Research Group (VAHRG) invites submissions for its second virtual conference, open to current PhD students and postdoctoral researchers working on any aspect of Venetian art history.

The conference will take place online via Zoom on Saturday, 24 October 2026, and will be hosted by members of the VAHRG committee.

We welcome proposals for short papers presenting current research on Venetian art. Presentations may be given in either English or Italian, be accompanied by a PowerPoint, and not exceed 20 minutes.

Those interested in participating are invited to submit a proposal title and an abstract (maximum 200 words) to venetianahg@gmail.com by Tuesday, 30 June 2026. Please also include your current university affiliation and the contact details of your supervisor(s).