Research

Overview

• Baroque art and architecture
• Holiness and materiality, especially 17thC Italian
• Architectural theory
• Baroque theory
• Architecture and gender especially conventual architecture
• Neapolitan baroque art and architecture

My research explores the inter-relationships between architecture, urbanism, holiness, and gender in early modern Italy, seeking to understand materiality, form and spatiality in relation to conflict and desire.

My recent book, Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-century Neapolitan Convents (Oxford UP, 2004), awarded the Best Book Prize (2004) by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (USA), considers aristocratic conventual architecture as metaphor for the aristocratic virginal body. Marmi mischi siciliani: invenzione e identità (Messina: BASM, 1999) sought to re-evaluate the intensely decorated marble inlaid chapels of baroque Palermo, by analysing them in relation to the political and social force fields in which they were produced. Thus I take issue with the long-standing (still persistent) view of southern baroque architecture as provincial and untutored imitation of the grandeur of Rome.

Rethinking the Baroque, an interdisciplinary volume of essays exploring baroque’s potential, was published in August 2011. It contains essays by leading scholars in art history, philosophy, literature and literary theory, and arose from an international conference I organized at York & Castle Howard in 2006.

I am co-founder of the Neapolitan Network , an exchange and meeting point for scholars of Neapolitan culture from all over the world, that developed from an AHRC-funded Network and was established in 2010.

Invited talks and conferences

• I have given papers at many national and international conferences and institutions including:

 CAA, AAH, Universities of Essex, Courtauld Institute, Warwick, Reading, Oxford, Manchester, Sussex, MMU, (Renaissance Research Seminar); Cambridge; Leeds (early modern Research seminar); Liverpool; Clark Institute, USA; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UCL-Courtauld Early Modern Research Seminar; University of Valenciennes; University of Stockholm; University of Santiago Chile; Palazzone Cortona (Harvard, Scuola Normale Pisa & EPHE, Paris); Universität der Künste, Berlin; V & A;  National Gallery; British School in Rome; Queen’s University, Canada; SE College Art Conference USA; Centro Internazionale di Studi sul barocco in Sicilia; Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei; Istituto Portugues do Patrimonio Arquitectonico; Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies (Pittsburgh); Universita degli Studi, Palermo; Conference of Urban Historians, Berlin;  Villa Le Balze (Georgetown University), Florence; Roma Tre University; Ecole Francaise de Rome; Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome; Universita degli Studi, Bologna; La Sapienza, Rome; Antwerp University;Fondazione Valerio per la storia delle donne, Naples.

Conferences Organised:

• 'Exoticizing Vesuvius? Formations of Naples, c.1500-present' 
  3 AHRC Workshops in 2009: Principal Investigator with Dr M Calaresu, Cambridge: The historical and intellectual formation of Neapolitan historiography;Topography and Piety: Naples Afflicted; Objects of Collecting in Naples and Naples as Object of Collecting, 1708-2008.
•  'Rethinking the Baroque'  
  International interdisciplinary Conference: University of York and Castle Howard 5-7 July 2006. Selected papers published as Rethinking the Baroque (Ashgate 2011).
•  'Representing Emotions: evidence, arousal, analysis'
  An international, interdisciplinary conference held at the University of Manchester in the Department of Art History, co-organized with Penelope Gouk. Sponsored by the British Academy, Wellcome Trust and the University of Manchester.
•  Study Days on ‘Monument’, ‘Space’, 'Architecture & Holiness beyond Liturgy’, ‘Precious Stones & Other Materials’, ‘Niche’ -2005-2010 as Director of the Architectural History & Theory Research School 2005-2010 I organized these study days with visiting and internal speakers.
•  'Urban Memory in Manchester' University of Manchester. September 2002

I also have a lively interest in contemporary architecture and urbanism and have published on contemporary art (see publications). I initiated a large research project, Cultural memory and architecture in post-industrial Manchester which received one of the first large grants ever awarded by the AHRB. My research focused principally on interstitial spaces, particularly underneath the railway arches as emblematic of post-industrial urbanity (see publications). 

I directed the Architectural History and Theory Research School at York between 2005-2010 and organized Study days and symposia on ‘Monument’ (2006), ‘Space’ (2007), ‘Architecture & Holiness Beyond Liturgy’ (2008), ‘Niche’ (2010), ‘Precious Stones & other Materials’ (2009), involving speakers from art and architectural history, architectural schools, and Departments of philosophy, English literature, and history from York and beyond.

I was responsible for bringing to York Professor Joseph Connors, Director Villa I Tatti  for the Patrides Lecture; Professor  Andrew Benjamin (Monash University , Australia) as Distinguished Visiting Speaker in January 2011 and Professor Alexei Lidov, Distinguished Visiting Professor 1 May-30 June 2011.

Projects

Following my British Academy Research Readership (2005-07), I am now completing a monograph book on the spiritual topography of Naples. This book considers baroque architecture, reliquaries, altarpieces, book frontispieces, portraits of would-be saints, and sculpture, as forms of holiness. It works towards thinking architecture as productive rather than as instantiation of pre-formed idea; and towards architecture as involved with, but not to be explained solely in terms of, non-architectural historical processes. Seeking to understand forms of holiness in relation to socio-political, urban and governmental questions, but not to reduce an analysis of form to these factors, my book explores how architecture can best be understood in relation to holiness. It considers architecture as intersection of and exchange between extensive and intensive space in the case of the miracle-working and exuberantly decorated Cappella del Tesoro in Naples Cathedral.

Research group(s)

• Architectural History and Theory
• Sculpture Studies
• Renaissance and Baroque Cluster

Grants

• 2008-09: AHRC Workshops Award ‘Exoticizing Vesuvius’ (Topography & Culture in Neapolitan History c.1500-present: Principal Investigator; with Dr M Calaresu, Cambridge
• 2008-09: AHRC Research Leave Scheme Award 2008-09
• 2005-07: British Academy Research Readership
• 2003: Balsdon Fellowship, British School in Rome
• 2002: AHRB Matching Leave Award
• 2000-02: ‘Urban Memory in Manchester: the Fabrication of the Post-Industrial’, AHRB, £79,296. With Mark Crinson & Frank Salmon
• 1998-99: ‘Convent architecture, gender, and power’, J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Arts and the Humanities
• 1998-99, Research Fellowship at the Centre Canadien d'Architecture. Awarded but declined
• 1997: ‘Mapping Early Modern Italian Cities: Maps as Inscriptions of Power’, Review Committee for Grants from the Endowment Committee of the College for Scholarly Publications and Performances, UNC-CH

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from students wanting to undertake research in areas related to my research interests (especially baroque architecture, Italian baroque sculpture & painting, relationships between holiness & architecture or genders /sexualities and urbanism / architecture).

Prospective PhD candidates may like to consult the History of Art Department's funding webpage, the Italian Cultural Association's website "Il Circolo", The British School at Rome and ResearchResearch.com for details of available scholarships.

In addition, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill I served on the PhD committees and supervised the successful completion of the PhD Baroque Examinations of a further 14 students.

In Progress

• Phil Thomas, 'John Coates Carter (1859-1927): architecture and a sense of place in South Wales’
• Martin Nixon, ‘The Baroque Towns built in the Val di Noto Area of Sicily 1700-1780’. Martin has been awarded the 2011 John Fleming Prize for research in Eastern Sicily.
• Bogdan Cornea, 'Towards the Sublime: Images of Violence in Early Modern Italy'
• Josephine Neil, 'Is a visual apophaticism at work in Spanish and Neapolitan Counter-Reformation Painting, and how did it influence the way divine presence and action was perceived?' Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London. April 2012-present. PhD co-supervisor with Prof. Ben Quash.
  

• Elizabeth Chew, PhD on 'Female art patronage and collecting in 17th-century Britain' (case studies of Anne Clifford Sackville Herbert, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke & Montgomery (1590-1676) and Aletheia Talbot Howard, Countess of Arundel (1584-1654). (advisor 1995-99) Examinations passed 1995; PhD awarded Dec 1999. Now Curator at Thomas Jefferson Museum at Monticello, USA.
• Alex Pilcher, 'Mythologies of Foundation in Renaissance Florence, c.1450-c.1550', Feb 1998-Sep 1998 (PhD co-supervisor). PhD submitted Oct 98. PhD awarded 1999. 
• Alice Sanger, 'Women of Power: Studies in the patronage of Medici Grand Duchesses and Regentesses 1656-1650'. Feb 1998-May 1999 (submitted) (PhD co-supervisor ). PhD awarded 2000. Now temporary Lecturer in Art History, University of Manchester.
• V. Whitfield, 'Portraiture of industrialists in 18thC Britain', temporary supervisor during illness of Prof. Marcia Pointon, Nov 00-Jul 01. PhD awarded Jun 02. 
• Alessandra Pompili, 'An insula in Ostia'. Aug 03-Feb 05 (PhD co-supervisor with Prof. R Ling). Awarded PhD Jul 07.
• Charlotte Poulton, 'The representation of music in early modern Italian painting' (Part-time USA) Viva Examination Oct 2009: PhD awarded with minor corrections (External Examiner: Professor Robert Kendrick, Department of Music, University of Chicago).
• In addition, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Professor Hills served on the PhD committees and supervised the successful completion of the PhD Baroque Examinations of a further 14 students.