SBMA Online

Rocky Ruggiero has been a professor of Art and Architectural History since 1999. His online lectures on subjects ranging from Ancient Art and Architecture through the Italian Baroque are extremely popular with an expansive worldwide audience, yet this lecture will be exclusive for SBMA Members and travelers. He received his BA from the College of the Holy Cross and a Master of Arts degree from Syracuse University, where he was awarded a prestigious Florence Fellowship in 1996. He furthered his art historical studies at the University of Exeter, UK, where he received a Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture. In addition to lecturing for various American universities in Florence, Italy, including Syracuse, Kent State, Vanderbilt, and Boston College, Rocky has starred in various TV documentaries concerning the Italian Renaissance. He recently appeared as an expert witness for NBC News, as well as in the History Channel’s “Engineering an Empire: Da Vinci’s World” and “Museum Secrets: the Uffizi Gallery”, and the recent NatGeo/NOVA PBS program on Brunelleschi’s dome entitled “Great Cathedral Mystery.” Rocky also shares his knowledge and love of Italian art as an academic advisory board member of the non-profit group Friends of Florence and as a frequent collaborator and lecturer for the Friends of the Uffizi Gallery, both of which have provided funds for the restoration of numerous works of art throughout Florence. After living in Florence, Italy for 20 years, Rocky and his family moved to East Greenwich, RI, and he now divides his time between the US and Italy.

Keelan Overton (PhD, UCLA, 2011) is a historian of Islamic art and architecture specializing in the eastern Islamic world. Her recent book is the edited volume Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400-1700 (Indiana University Press, June 2020). Her current book is a global history of Persian tilework, and this project has been awarded a Getty Scholar grant. For the last six years, Keelan has been as an Independent Scholar based in Santa Barbara, where she divides her time between research, writing, teaching, and travel. This year, she will be teaching at Pomona College and in residence at the Getty working on her book. Dr. Overton previously served as the Curator of Islamic Art at the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art (Shangri La) in Honolulu (2011-12) and as an Associate Curator in the Art of the Middle East department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014 – 15).