Tell us about yourself: what is your name, where you come from, what you teach at Ca' Foscari, what are your interests and research areas.
My name is Simone Piazza, I arrived at Ca' Foscari in 2018, through a public competition for a position of associate professor, which I entered from abroad: in fact, I came from the Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, where for twelve years I held the position of Maître de conférences. I have always taught both History of Medieval Art and History of Byzantine Art, and my research interests revolve around two subjects: the circulation of models (visual, formal, technical-executional) in the Mediterranean (4th-13th centuries) and the recovery of the memory of lost paintings (documented through the analysis of written sources, ancient drawings and/or surviving fragments). Since I have been in Venice, I have also begun to deal with the exceptional medieval heritage - existing and lost - of the Lagoon, especially mosaic production.
Tell us about your academic path.
It is, in my case, a double journey with numerous comings and goings on both sides of the Alps: in Italy, I graduated and obtained my PhD at the Department of Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of Tuscia, then I worked as an adjunct professor at the Universities of Catania, Viterbo and Cassino; in France, I earned a Diplôme des Études Approfondies and a PhD at Paris1-Sorbonne, titles that allowed me to qualify for the public competition in Montpellier. In 2015 the Université de Bourgogne also awarded me the diploma of "Habilitation à Diriger de Recherches", which is a necessary condition in the French academic system to direct PhD theses and apply for the Qualification, which in turn is necessary to access full professorship public competitions (exams never end...).
What are your professional references?
If by references you mean scientific experts or particular research environments, I must admit that I do not have any: I pursue my interests, trying to listen to my inner motivations while interacting with the scientific world. However, I do not consider myself self-taught, on the contrary: the teaching of Maria Andaloro has been fundamental for me. During my training years, she gave me the opportunity to participate in numerous working groups in Italy and Asia Minor, passing on to me the enthusiasm for fieldwork and the habit of conducting an all-round historical, critical, technical and material reading of the artefact. I also remember with pleasure the contribution of my French 'tutor', Catherine Jolivet-Lévy, who in my postgraduate years at the Sorbonne taught me to refine the tools to study Byzantine iconography.
What has given you the greatest satisfaction in your career?
Each stage of my professional career has obviously been a source of satisfaction. I have also been greatly gratified by research, both when I completed lengthy works, as in the case of monographs or particularly demanding essays, and when I made accidental discoveries during fieldwork: I remember, for instance, "the eye of St Rufinus", a fragment of a Giotto painting, about the size of a stamp, which I recognised, as a student, among the rubble of the Upper Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, in the aftermath of the 1997 earthquake; I also remember the excitement I felt when, in 2008, I was the first scholar to enter the interior of a semi-underground church in the Benevento area (the church of San Gabriele in Airola, with extraordinary paintings from the year 1000), hidden for centuries in the basement of a monastery. These are unforgettable experiences.
But perhaps the greatest satisfaction comes from the ‘feeling’ of having learned, for better or worse, over the years, the job of art historian, and of having succeeded, more or less, in conveying a passion for the subject to my students, along with many notions that most have probably forgotten in the meantime. I don't know whether this is a misconception or something real, but there it is.
The area you have always wanted to be involved in but have not yet had the opportunity to explore?
At the moment I have no dream projects, it would be wonderful to complete those in progress (on the existing and lost heritage of Venetian mosaics, on Benevento-Cassino paintings), the many joint projects with colleagues from other disciplines (on "Dark Ages" in Rome, on meta-images in Byzantine visual language, on Zenith light in Armenian churches, on medieval philosophy and its repercussions on iconography...). In a few years, if I have the time and the means, I would like to launch a university mission to the Greek-Oriental area - an experience I have never had as coordinator - but for now it is only a concept in the making.
What are you most passionate about in your research?
Being able to unearth fragments of artistic memory that have fallen into oblivion and reconnect them to their original context.
Have you always known that this was going to be your path?
Yes.
What do teaching and researching mean to you?
They are two very different activities even though they benefit from each other. I believe that teaching is about being able to convey, not so much and not only notions, but rather a passion for knowledge. Teaching is not just giving, of course: interaction with students helps teachers elaborate and clarify their ideas, highlight the most important issues, sharpen their ability to describe a phenomenon. Researching is like treading uncharted ground: no matter how well planned, there are always momentous periods and moments of doubt, delays, unexpected events, pleasant surprises (when you discover something) and disappointments (when you discover that your hypothesis does not hold up or has already been formulated by others).
Can you offer any advice to researchers in the early stages of their career?
I don't usually give students advice on how to approach research, and I don't think they expect this kind of advice from us teachers: we can suggest a topic, a read, we can - and must - help them acquire methodological tools, show them opportunities for grants and possible job opportunities, but I think it is better to leave them free to make their own choices, according to their inclinations and interests. After all, research is an adventure and should be experienced as such.