Vera Fortunati

As a professor of early modern art history at the University of Bologna, Vera Fortunati has for many years worked on issues and problems in Bolognese and Emilian sixteenth-century art, researching the role and function of images between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, topics on which she has published numerous articles and books of international relevance. Since 1981, Prof. Fortunati has been interested in women artists, rediscovering many nearly forgotten ones – such as Caterina de’ Vigri, Properzia de’ Rossi, Lavinia Fontana and Elisabetta Sirani – in articles, monographs and international exhibitions (e.g. in Washington D.C. in 1998 and 2008). She continues to lecture actively at both public and private institutions and is the director of a publication series on art with the Editrice Compositori in Bologna. At E.C.Co., Prof. Fortunati has offered a range of interdisciplinary art history courses that have helped students understand the history of European art during the Renaissance and Baroque periods in a broader cultural context. Her courses on sixteenth-century artists and the reformed religious movements, on art and science from Leonardo to Caravaggio, on the power of images in the age of the Counter-Reformation, and on the Carracci and Caravaggio, have combined theoretical study with visits to museums, churches and palaces in Bologna and other Italian cities.