Marina Rovelli

PhD supervisor: Professor Alison Wright
Working title for PhD: 'Arts of metals in Milan (1450-1499)'

I graduated from Ca’ Foscari (Venice) with a BA in Conservation of Cultural Heritage in 2013, followed by a MA in History of Early Modern Art from the same university in 2016 (110 cum laude). During my MA and before starting my PhD, I worked as an assistant registrar at the Exhibition Office of Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, supporting the activities related to the loan of works of art from the permanent collections to exhibitions in Italy and abroad.

My current research addresses the circulation of metals and production of metal objects (whether in gold, silver, brass and bronze, steel) in Milan in the second half of the fifteenth century and their impact on the social and working structures of the city. It also explores how these materials and objects affected the characteristic visual culture of the Sforza court and of fifteenth-century Milan more broadly. As well as providing the first insight into the fundamental role played by the arts of metals in Milan, this research also aims to offer a new understanding of the characteristic visual and material culture of this city, a context relatively little explored in the panorama of fifteenth-century Italy.

My PhD is funded by UCL (Departmental Research Studentship in History of Art) and supervised by Professor Alison Wright.

Research interests

Milanese and northern Italian artistic production, courtly practices in Italy and Europe, applied and decorative arts, history of science (with particular reference to metallurgy).

Publications

‘Da parrocchiani a scolari. Alcuni volti della committenza di Santa Maria presso San Satiro (1476-1490)’, Arte Lombarda, 179-180 (2017/1-2), 29-41.

Conference papers

‘Displaying the Treasure at Ludovico Sforza’s Court’. Medieval and Early Modern Spaces and Places 2019: Experiencing the Court. London, 3-4 April 2019.
‘… in quibus omnibus mirum est quam arti quoque materia succumbat egregia. The Tabernacolo Pallavicino and the work of the faber in fifteenth-century Milan’. The Courtauld Institute of Art’s 25th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium: Working Materials and Materials at Work in Medieval Art and Architecture. London, 7 February 2020.

Teaching

2021-2022 (Autumn Term): Art in London before 1600 (UCL, History of Art Department)
2020-2021 (Spring Term): Art in London before 1600 (UCL, History of Art Department)
2019-2020 (Spring Term): Teaching Assistant for Methodologies of Making (UCL, History of Art Department)
2018-2019 (Spring Term): Teaching Assistant for the Advanced Lecture in the History of Art - Early Modern Bodies (UCL, History of Art Department)