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Giovanni Maria Fara
History of Modern Art

Tell us about yourself: where do you come from, what do you teach at Ca' Foscari, Tell us about your academic path.
I arrived at Ca' Foscari in 2015, after winning the competition for Associate Professor of History of Modern Art (L-Art/02) - I had previously taught, as an Adjunct Professor, at the School of Specialisation in Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Siena. After receiving the Italian National Scientific Habilitation, in 2020 I was called as Full Professor of History of Modern Art (L-Art/02) by the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca' Foscari University. At this University I teach History of Modern Art in the Bachelor's degree in Conservation of Cultural Heritage and Performing Arts Management and in the Master's degree in History of Arts and Conservation of Artistic Heritage, and History of Drawing and Graphics in the Modern Age in the Master's degree; Since 2017 I have been coordinating the master's degree course in History of the Arts and Conservation of the Artistic Heritage and I am a member of the Teaching Board of the PhD programme in History of the Arts. I am also, along with Silvia Burini, the scientific director of the new series of Venezia Arti, the magazine founded in 1987 by Wladimiro Dorigo and Giuseppe Mazzariol, and I am a member of the Editorial Board of Edizioni Ca' Foscari. I graduated in Literature, with a focus on art history, at the University of Florence, and later obtained a three-year specialisation in Archaeology and Art History at the University of Siena, as well as a PhD in Classical Philology and Art History. At the National Centre for Renaissance Studies in Florence and at the University of Pisa I also completed a three-year postgraduate course in Humanism and Renaissance Civilisation. After winning the public competition for teaching in 2001, I taught History of Art in upper secondary schools for a long time, an important experience for me, which I alternated with periods of research of varying length: I was, for instance, a Hanna Kiel Fellow at Villa I Tatti - The Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies, with a research project on Albrecht Dürer in ancient Italian sources: 1508-1686, which in 2014 received the Lila Acheson Wallace Grant for Publication, for a book published by Olschki; I also held other fellowships and research grants at Harvard University, the Universities of Siena and Trento, the National Centre for Renaissance Studies in Florence, and the Andrea Palladio International Centre for Architectural Studies in Vicenza.

What are your interests and research areas? What are you most passionate about in your research?
My research activity is mainly focused on European Renaissance graphics, through the actual study of important collections. For instance, for many years I have been indexing the collection of German prints kept at the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi Gallery, a research project that I am passionate about, in which I can profitably cross-reference precise research on Renaissance engraving techniques, contemporary historiographic sources and ancient inventories of the historic collection, with the broader aim of attempting to reconstruct the impact of German visual culture in Italy between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The results of this research have so far flowed into the curatorship of the exhibitions Albrecht Dürer engraver. Originals, Copies, Derivations (March-June 2007) and, with Francesca de Luca, Portraits of the Reformation. Luther and Cranach in the Medici Collections (October 2017-January 2018), but above all in drafting the catalogues: Albrecht Dürer. Originals, Copies, Derivations, Florence, Olschki, 2007 and "Intorno a Dürer: 1470-1550. Gli antichi maestri tedeschi nel Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi" (Around Dürer: 1470-1550. Early German Masters in the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi gallery), Florence/Milan, Giunti, 2019. Another project, closely related to this one, involves the annotated edition of some of the main sources for the history of European engraving, written between the 16th and 18th centuries - in 2016 I published, for Edizioni della Normale di Pisa, the critical edition of Giovanni Baglione, "Intagliatori" (Engravers) [Rome 1642], and I am currently preparing, with the publisher Olschki, the critical edition, with secular commentary, of Giorgio Vasari, "Life of Marcantonio Bolognese", and of other printmakers [Florence 1568].
These research interests are completed by the study, which I have been conducting for many years, of Albrecht Dürer, not only as an engraver, but also as a painter and art theorist, seen through the privileged perspective of his vast and varied reception in Italy during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. More recently, I have taken an interest in Leonardo da Vinci, as an engraver and theorist, in his links with Venice and the North. Lastly, I would like to keep studying the deep connections between art and science in the modern age, which I have explored over the years by studying the lives and works of artists such as Jacopo Aconcio, Daniele Barbaro, Teofilo Gallaccini and Cesare Ripa.

What do teaching and researching mean to you?
I have always believed that the unbreakable link between teaching and research, the traditional backbone of Italian university studies, is still a valid reference model, and one that should certainly be preserved. I hope, therefore, that I can pass on to my students a passion for research, and with it the method and precision needed to achieve lasting results.

Last update: 27/02/2024