This lecture explores the complex, subtle and multifaceted process of the visual and material construction of Avignon as ‘new Rome’, and its broader historical and cultural context. In so doing it demonstrates that the papal fashioning of Avignon in relation to the Eternal City went hand in hand with a new visual construction of the ‘old’ Rome. It further contends that it is only by taking an internationalist approach to Avignonese art, seeing it in the wider context of what was being commissioned in Rome at the time, that the current debates and interpretations can best be revised in such a way as to shed new light on artistic patronage both in Provence and in Rome.

Claudia Bolgia is Professor of Medieval Art History at the University of Udine.

The event will be both in-person and online. Register to attend online (at least one hour in advance to receive access)!