Nicole Boyd is a PhD candidate in History of Art at Yale University, specializing in seventeenth-century Italian painting and architecture. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, she received her BA in Art History and Italian Studies from Wesleyan University, where she wrote a thesis on the Romagnolo painter Guido Cagnacci (1601–1663). Her doctoral dissertation focuses on the Bolognese frescoists Angelo Michele Colonna (1604–1687) and Agostino Mitelli (1609–1660) and their illusionistic architectural murals found in locales such as the Palazzo Pitti in Florence and Palazzo Ducale d’Este in Sassuolo. As a Kress Fellow at MAP, Nicole will develop this project, seeking wide-ranging archival materials that will enable her to better understand how these immersive artworks were experienced and interpreted by their original “Baroque” audiences.
LINKS: Yale University