Research
I am working on several article and book projects; some are related to exhibitions, others are free-standing. The first project is an essay that reconstructs a fourteenth-century fresco cycle that was painted on the interior of the Loggia della Misericordia (below), a Florentine confraternity dedicated to performing acts of charity to the city’s needy. The fresco represents scenes from the life of Tobit, the Old Testament figure who was the patron of the confraternity. The imagery focuses on burying the dead, which was one of the primary responsibilities of the Misericordia. This is part of a book-length monograph of the confraternity that I will be writing over the course of this decade.
Related to work on the Misericordia, I plan to organize a traveling exhibition on the theme of Caritas/Charity, based on works in American collections.
On other matters Italian, I am working on an essay that considers the role of Trecento art in E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View.
I plan to begin work on my next book—Gothic Pilgrimage—which is a study of major pilgrimage sites ca. 1400 along the ancient Roman via francigena from London to Rome. This study stems from a seminar that I have offered periodically for past ten years.
Regarding my on-going research on Fort Marion, I will continue work on my catalogue of the fifty stereo photographs (below) that were made of the Plains Indians who were held captive there from 1875 to 1878.
