Research Projects, PUBLICATIONS and Collaborations

Arcimboldo’s festival drawings: materiality and imagination

This ongoing investigation involves an analysis of Arcimboldo’s festival drawings for the Habsburg court, today kept at the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe. While considered to be mainly invented and imagined, the drawings contain many small pieces of evidence that Arcimboldo was thinking of the physical manufacture of what he was designing. The wider circle of artists and humanists at the Habsburg court including Jacopo Strada are also studied in order to bring more context to Arcimboldo’s work. Initial research was presented at the International Study Course Drawings in Theory and Practice (28 July-1 August 2025) hosted by the Albertina (Dr. Christof Metzger) and the University of Vienna, Department of Art History (Univ. Prof. Sebastian Schütze).

From scottish kings to chinese emperors: on Daniele Antonio Bertoli’s exoticism

Research presented at the International conference Bertoli (1677-1743), Drawing Elegance in the Service of the Imperial Court. In this work I focus on how Bertoli, a prolific costume designer for early eighteenth-century opera in Vienna, conceived of and portrayed both European and non-European cultures in his work for the stage. Bertoli’s output has been largely ignored by art historians and early modern opera scholars. However, it can shed much light on our understanding of early eighteenth-century opera and performance practices. Findings will eventually be published in the first major catalogue on Bertoli (edited by Dr. Rudi Risatti) planned for 2027.

Reconsidering Savoyard Wedding Festivites in light of scenographic documents

In April 2024 I presented research at the conference Il secolo di Mercedes Viale Ferrero. La scenografia, la musica, l’arte e le feste hosted by the University of Turin and the Teatro Reggio Tornio. I demonstrated that the manuscripts made to commemorate seventeenth-century court ballets while fascinating, detailed and allusive, do not give us a very precise picture of court performance in Turin. This is mainly due to the exact copies of stage scenes from other artists which post-date the performances of the ballets, thus implying that some of the images in the manuscripts cannot possibly depict what was performed on stage in Turin. With this discovery, we must question to what extent other aspects of performance, such as the costumes and gestures, as displayed in the manuscripts were simply invented and imagined. My findings will be published in a forthcoming volume.

HABSBURG encounters with Native america

Research I presented at the conference Habsburg Encounters with Native America, hosted by the Botstiber Institute and the University of Innsbruck, was published in the 2025 volume Habsburg Encounters with Native America. Familiar Strangers (CEU Press). My chapter contribution explores how Indigenous peoples of the Americans were depicted in Habsburg performance and festival culture between 1500-1700. The entire book is available open access with the link below.

Master Drawings 2022 Ricciardi Prize

My article entitled, Copy or Coincidence? Pietro Righini and the Bibiena Legacy was selected for publication in Master Drawings Volume 60, Issue 2 and awarded the Ricciardi Prize for best article from a young scholar.

Watch me present the findings of my article at the 2023 Master Drawings Symposium in New York:

Depicitons of the OTTOman in 17th-18th century European opera

Ongoing research project which began with funding from the Beinecke Library at Yale in the form of a Beinecke Library Graduate Research Fellowship and is now the topic of my PhD at the University of Vienna. This project focuses on representations of othered characters, mainly Ottomans, in early opera, especially in stage and costume design.

art-es: Il pomo d’oro & Winter Delights

I have been collaborating with the Theatermuseum in Vienna on various projects since 2015. As part of the Art-es digital exhibitions series, I worked with curator Daniela Franke on English translations for her animated retelling of Il pomo d’oro, one of the largest and most important operas of the Baroque period. While the entire opera took roughly ten hours over two days, the 30-minute animated summary can be watched below.

I also completed English translations and voice over for curator Monika Kurzel-Runtscheiner’s Art-es piece Winter Delights: Sleigh Ride at the Viennese Court.