Rava Memorial Lecture in Italian Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

I’m honored to be delivering the 2024 Rava Memorial Lecture this coming week, and grateful to the Rava family for their gift to Italian Studies that makes this annual event possible.

The lecture, “Between Venice and the World: Gentile Bellini’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II and Matters of Italianità ,” will be a chance to dig deeper into this enigmatic painting and investigate just what it means to call the work “Italian.” What did this concept mean to the patron, to its 19th-century collector, and to museums and galleries in the 20th century? What light can this question shed on how we think about identity, past and present?

If you happen to be in St. Louis this Wednesday, Feb. 28, I hope you will attend. A reception begins at 4:00 pm in the Goldberg Formal Lounge, and the lecture at 5:00 pm in the Danforth University Center (DUC) 276.