The 10th Italian Renaissance Sculpture Conference took place over three beautiful days in May. We heard fascinating lectures and had stimulating conversations – grazie a tutti per la vostra viva partecipazione!!

 

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Welcome!

The Tenth Quadrennial Italian Renaissance Sculpture Conference, known colloquially as “Provo-Athens,” will convene at Stony Brook University – The State University of New York in Stony Brook, NY on 1-3 May 2025.

The conference provides a forum for the presentation of new research on Italian sculpture during the Renaissance, broadly defined. It brings together scholars of Italian sculpture of all levels and from a variety of academic areas (universities, museums, independent scholars) and offers opportunities for the convivial exchange of ideas. This year 39 speakers from across Europe and the United States will share their current work on the history of Italian sculpture. Keynote lectures by Denise Allen (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Kelley Helmstutler di Dio (University of Vermont), and Andrea Bacchi (Università di Bologna) will speak to the chronological and methodological range of the conference, and a roundtable on the final day will look forward to the future of the field.

The conference is sponsored by The Center for Italian Studies at Stony Brook University. It is further supported by The Kress Foundation; The Lila Wallace Special Project Grant – I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; The Office of the Vice-President for Research, Stony Brook University; The Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Stony Brook University. We are also grateful for additional contributions from the Humanities Institute, the Institute for Globalization Studies, and the Departments of Hispanic Languages and Literature, History, and Languages and Cultural Studies at Stony Brook University.

In this occasion we also celebrate the 10th iteration of the conference. The first was first held at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in 1988, organized by Steve Bule on the 500th anniversary of the death of sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. Twelve years later, the fourth conference was held at the University of Georgia, Athens. As a result, the conference is often known as ‘Provo-Athens.’ In more recent years it has been held at The University of Vermont (9th), the National Gallery of Art, Washington in collaboration with The University of Texas at Dallas (8th), the University of Kansas (7th), and Rhodes College and Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN (6th). The long life and scholarly projection of this event has been a prominent and innovative platform for the study of Italian sculpture in the US and beyond. The strong response to the last call for papers is a mark of the success of the founders of this conference in creating a long-lasting space for academic dialogue among generations of scholars.

The conference is co-organized by Karen Lloyd and Fernando Loffredo.