Adriano Aymonino is Director of the University of Buckingham鈥檚 undergraduate聽History and History of Art Programme聽and Programme Director of the聽MA Art Market, Provenance and the History of Collecting. He received a BA in History of Art from the Sapienza Universit脿 di Roma, an MA in Cultural and Intellectual History 1300-1650 from the Warburg Institute, and a PhD in Theories and History of Art from the IUAV and the Universit脿 di Venezia Ca鈥 Foscari. He has held various grants and fellowships, including ones awarded by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (Yale University), the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and at the Huntington Library in Pasadena. Prior to joining the University in 2012, he worked as head of research for the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, based in London.
A specialist in the reception of the classical tradition in the early modern period, Adriano鈥檚 research focuses on visual culture in the age of the Enlightenment and the Grand Tour, with a specific attention to Britain and the dynamics of exchange between the Mediterranean world and the north of Europe. His research interests include the teaching of art and the evolution of art theory in the Early Modern period; the interactions between the theories and practices of art and architecture; the relationship between patronage and collecting with epistemology and aesthetics in the long eighteenth century; and the materials and mediums of art and architecture.
He has published widely on the reception of the classical tradition, as well as on the visual arts more generally in Early Modern Europe. His last book, , published by Yale University Press in 2021, examines the role played by patronage and collecting in shaping visual and material culture in eighteenth-century England. He has co-edited , and (for the Paul Mellon Centre鈥檚 Art and the Country House project), and he is now working with Eloisa Dodero on a new edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny鈥檚 , which will be published by Brepols in 2022.
Adriano has curated several exhibitions such as : the Topham Collection as a source for British Neo-Classicism (2013); : Artists and the Classical Ideal (2015); and . Scambi, modelli e temi tra l鈥橝ccademia di San Luca e la cultura artistica britannica tra XVIII e XIX secolo (2018-19).
He is currently working on a book on Pier Leone Ghezzi鈥檚 Studio di Molte Pietre (with Silvia Davoli, MIT Press, 2022) and on a digital platform: (with Colin Thom; from 2023 on open access via the Sir John Soane鈥檚 Museum鈥檚 website). Adriano has also started a new project, The Compass and the Flesh: The Classical Body as Architectural Body, which explores the relationship between theories of proportion and those of architecture, the antique and anatomy in the definition of the ideal body and the canon in the context of the European art academy (16th-19th centuries).
He is associate editor for the and a Member of the Advisory Board of the Museo del Bargello, Florence. Adriano is also the convenor of The University of Buckingham .
Teaching
Surveys
- Classical to Early Medieval Art
- Renaissance Art
- Baroque to Neoclassical Art
- Romanticism to Fin-de-Si猫cle: 1800-1900
- Modern Art from 1900
Other courses
- Introduction to Art History
- Research Skills in History and History of Art
- Critical Concepts and Developments in Art History
- The Age of the Enlightenment
- Country House: Form, Function, Culture
- Fin de Si猫cle Vienna 1880-1920
PhD supervisions
- Vivien Bird: ‘Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824): Antiquarian, Collector, Connoisseur’ (working title).
- Albertina Ciani: Analysis of the British sculptural production of Italian artists in the second half of the nineteenth century, beginning from the activity of Baron Carlo Marochetti (1805-1867) and Raffaele Monti (1818-1881).
Publications
Authored Books
Aymonino and S. Davoli, Paper marbles: Pier Leone Ghezzi鈥檚 鈥楽tudio di Molte Pietre鈥 (1726), MIT Press, 2022.
The Enlightenment on paper. The album by Jean Louis Fesch in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland, London, Roxburghe Club, 2023.
Edited Books
Aymonino and E. Dodero (eds), Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny,聽Taste and the Antique. The lure of classical sculpture 1500-1900: a revised, updated and extended edition, Turnhout, Brepols, 2022.
Exhibition Catalogues
Aymonino, C. Brook, G.P. Consoli (eds), Roma-Londra. Scambi, modelli e temi tra l鈥橝ccademia di San Luca e la cultura artistica britannica nel XVIII secolo (text also in English), Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, 2020.
Articles and Book Chapters
鈥楲a pala di San Pantalon di Paolo Veronese: immagine devozionale e manifesto politico鈥, Venezia 500, XV, 2005, n. 30, pp. 159-200.
鈥楪li spazi del collezionismo nella prima epoca Stuart: un difficile inizio鈥, in A. Aymonino and I. Tolic (eds), La vita delle mostre, Milan, Bruno Mondadori, 2007, pp. 55-72.
鈥楧ecorum and celebration of the family line: Robert Adam鈥檚 monuments to the first Duchess of Northumberland鈥, Burlington Magazine, CLII, May 2010, pp. 288-96.
鈥楽yon House e l鈥檜so delle fonti antiquarie nella decorazione inglese del Settecento鈥, in C. Brook and V. Curzi (eds), Roma e l鈥檃ntico. Visione e realt谩 nel Settecento, exh. cat., Turin, Skira, 2010, pp. 207-12.
Aymonino and A. Cosma, 鈥楳attia Preti a Malta鈥, in C. Conforti and N. Marconi (eds), La Valletta: citt脿, architettura e costruzione sotto il segno della fede e della guerra, Rome, Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello stato, 2011, pp. 3-20.
鈥楾丑别 Musaeum of the 1st Duchess of Northumberland (1716-1776) at Northumberland House in London鈥, in S. Bracken, A. M. G谩ldy and A. Turpin (eds), Women collectors, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012, pp. 101-120.
鈥楾ommaso Maria Conca鈥檚 drawing with the Chariot of the Sun: a cosmological scheme for the Borghese family鈥, Getty Research Journal, V, 2013, pp. 29鈥40.
鈥楾丑别 fortune of the Borghese Dancers in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European art and decoration鈥, in G. Capitelli, S. Grandesso and C. Mazzarelli (eds), Roma fuori di Roma: l鈥檈sportazione dell鈥檃rte moderna da Pio VI all鈥檜nit脿 (1775-1870), Rome, Campisano, 2013, pp. 477-92.
鈥楨ighteenth-century British painting and its audience: the 鈥淩ule of Taste鈥 and mercantile society鈥, in C. Brook and V. Curzi (eds), Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner: British Painting and the Rise of Modernity, exh. cat., Turin, Skira, 2014, pp. 3-9.
鈥楴ature perfected鈥: the theory & practice of drawing after the Antique鈥, in A. Aymonino and A. Varick Lauder (eds), Drawn from the Antique: artists and the classical ideal, exh. cat., Haarlem, Teylers Museums, London, Sir John Soane鈥檚 Museum, 2015, pp. 15-77.
Aymonino and M. Guerci, 鈥楾丑别 architectural transformation of Northumberland House under the 7th Duke of Somerset and the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, 1748-86鈥, The Antiquaries Journal, vol. 96, 2016, pp. 315-61.
鈥楽yon House鈥, 鈥楽omerset House鈥, in C. Van Eck and S. De Jong (eds), The Blackwell鈥檚 Companion to 18th– Century Architecture, Chichester, Wiley, 2017.
Aymonino and M. Guerci, 鈥楾丑别 refurbishment of Northumberland House. Craftsmen and interior decoration in mid-eighteenth-century London town houses鈥, in S. Avery-Quash and K. Retford (eds), The London Town House, Bloomsbury, 2019, pp. 71-98.
鈥樷楾丑别 true style of antique decoration鈥: Agostino Brunias and the birth of Adam鈥檚 style at Kedleston Hall and Syon House鈥, in C. Thom (ed.), Robert Adams and his brothers. New light on Britain’s leading architectural family, Historic England, London, pp. 104-22.
鈥楲udovico Dolce鈥檚 Aretino: its foundational role in the theory of Classicism and its eighteenth-century revival鈥, Artibus et Historiae, vol. 78, 2019, pp. 201-18.
Aymonino and M. Modolo, 鈥樷淎n advantage for the Learned & Virtuoso Republick鈥: dessins d鈥檃pr猫s l鈥檃ntique dans l鈥橝ngleterre des d茅buts du XVIIIe si猫cle鈥, in M.-L. Fabr茅ga-Dubert (ed.), La collection Borghe虁se dans le Recueil Topham, Paris, Muse虂e du Louvre, 2019, pp. 25-33.
Aymonino and C. Hornsby, 鈥楽ir Francis Dashwood鈥檚 house at West Wycombe Park: a Dilettante鈥檚 Pantheon鈥, Art and the Country House, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (Yale University), 2020 ().
Aymonino, 鈥楶laying with the Canon: West Wycombe Park鈥檚 iconography and the principle of citation鈥, Art and the Country House, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (Yale University), 2020 ()
Aymonino, 鈥極bject in focus: Giovanni Pietro Bellori and Pietro Santi Bartoli, Admiranda Romanarum Antiquitatum ac veteris Sculpturae vestigia . . ., Rome, 1693鈥, Art and the Country House, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (Yale University), 2020 ()
Aymonino, 鈥楾丑别 Roman model and the development of the London academy: the training system of the Society of Arts 1758-1767鈥, in A. Aymonino, C. Brook, G.P. Consoli (eds), Roma-Londra. Scambi, modelli e temi tra l鈥橝ccademia di San Luca e la cultura artistica britannica nel XVIII secolo (text also in English), Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, 2020, pp. 43-62, 235-43.
Aymonino and E. Dodero, 鈥樷淭he smell of stone鈥: Rubens and the statues of Rome鈥 in D. Gasparotto (ed.) Rubens and the Antique, exh. cat., Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2021.
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