Laura Somenzi

Laura Somenzi
Junior Research Fellow

Laura Somenzi is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at Emory University where she specializes in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italian art with Prof. Jean Campbell. Her dissertation, “Treasuries, Invention and the Teodelinda Chapel in Monza,” focuses on the functions of pictorial invention in the fifteenth-century wall paintings of the Queen’s chapel in relation to the invention of relics, treasures, and sacred space in Monza. In Florence, Laura’s research concentrates on a manuscript of Arthurian tales, (Palatino 556, BCNF) which has been closely related to the Teodelinda chapel on stylistic grounds. The comparison of the chapel paintings with the manuscript drawings opens questions about the role of narrative to invention, imitative practices, and relational modes of artistic making.

Laura received her M.A. from Emory University with a thesis on the manuscripts of Francesco di Giorgio’s treatise on architecture and engineering, and graduated with a B.A. in the History of Art from Johns Hopkins University with a thesis on Agostino di Duccio’s relief sculpture in Umbria and Emilia-Romagna.