Dr Lucia Tantardini
Lucia Tantardini specialises in the Renaissance and Early Modern period, c. 1400-1600.
Dr Tantardini holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Previously she worked at Christie’s London and at the Art Institute of Chicago.
She joined Clare Hall as a Research Fellow and she is currently Official Fellow, Tutor, and Praelector. At Clare Hall, she leads the Art and Architecture Special Interest Group, she co-organised the 50th Anniversary international conference Clare Hall and Italy (University of Bologna, 2015) and edited the volume Ralph Erskine and the invention of Clare Hall (2016), among other projects.
In the Department of History of Art, she lectures for the Part I Tripos, which she convened for various years, and taught the Special Subject Drawing in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy c. 1450-1600, the only academic course worldwide entirely devoted to drawing. For the 500thanniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, she organised the interdisciplinary conference ‘Leonardo (1519-2019): Art. History Science’ held at the Fitzwilliam Museum. She is also Director of Studies at Clare College and Trinity Hall, as well as a Syndic of the Senate House of the University of Cambridge.
Dr Tantardini’s scholarship combines critical and visual approaches which both reflect her academic and professional background. Her research concentrates on the development of the art of drawing between Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio but more widely, her work addresses Renaissance drawing and painting, their interrelation, and their common theoretical inspiration, both as act and art.
History of Art at Clare Hall
Clare Hall has a distinguished community of art historians, making it a vibrant place for graduate students committed to this subject. In addition to Dr Tantardini, current Official Fellows include Erma Hermens, director of the Hamilton Kerr Institute for the conservation of easel paintings.
Long prominent in History of Art, Clare Hall Emeriti Fellows in the subject feature eminent art historians such as Robert Anderson, former director of the British Museum, Gloria Carnevali, former Director of Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, Renaissance scholar Paul Joannides, and Frances Spalding, former editor of the Burlington Magazine.
Moreover, the College is within walking distance of the University Library, the Department of History of Art, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Kettle’s Yard, among other museums, and has a regular programme of exhibitions organised by the Clare Hall Art Committee.
