Adriano AMENDOLA | Curriculum

Adriano Amendola (Rome, 1979) is Associate Professor of Early Modern Art History at the University of Salerno, where he serves as Coordinator of the PhD Programme in Methods and Methodologies of Archaeological and Art Historical Research within the Department of Cultural Heritage Sciences. He is also Director of the Postgraduate School of Specialization in Historical and Artistic Heritage at the University of Perugia, Department of Humanities, Ancient and Modern Languages, Literatures and Civilizations, based in Gubbio.

He is Principal Investigator of a research unit within the 2022 PRIN project Peripheral Baroque Sculpture 1630–1750: Knowledge and Engagement. Census and Digital Atlas of the Provinces of Lazio and Border Areas (Project No. 2022A773E4), coordinated by Professor Cristiano Giometti (University of Florence). Within the framework of this project, he has been a Visiting Scholar at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome since October 23, 2024, with an appointment running until December 31, 2026.

Since 2023 he has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the journal Storia dell’Arte and, since 2024, of Ricche Minere. Since 2024 he has also served on the Editorial Board of Critica d’Arte, published by the Fondazione Ragghianti in Lucca. In March 2025 he was elected Full Member of the Società Romana di Storia Patria.

Previously, he led a research unit within the 2013 FIRB project The Orsini and Savelli Families in Papal Rome: Art and Patronage from the Feudal Domain to the European Courts, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR). Between 2014 and 2018 he was Adjunct Professor at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio (Università della Svizzera italiana).

In 2010 he received his PhD in Art History from Sapienza University of Rome, defending a dissertation entitled The Caetani of Sermoneta: Political Strategies and Artistic History between Rome and Europe in the Seventeenth Century. In 2011 he was awarded a fellowship by the Hermitage Italia Foundation (Ferrara), where he conducted the research project “Venerated and Dear Master”: Maria Krasceninnicowa, Adolfo Venturi and the History of Russian Art in Italy. Through previously unpublished archival documentation, he reconstructed the biography of the first foreign student of Adolfo Venturi’s School of Advanced Studies in Art History and highlighted her pioneering role in the study of Russian art in Italy and in promoting knowledge of Russian museums during the 1920s and 1930s.

From 2011 to 2013 he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Swiss National Science Foundation project Giacomo, Giovanni Battista and Pier Francesco Mola: Interaction, Networking and Ascent of a Swiss-Italian Family of Artists in Baroque Rome, directed by Christoph Frank at the Academy of Architecture of the Università della Svizzera italiana. Within this project he organized the international conference on the Mola family of artists (Mendrisio, 6–7 June 2013). He continues to collaborate with the Institute for the History and Theory of Art and Architecture in Mendrisio.

Since 2009 he has participated in the Getty Research Institute project The Display of Art in Roman Palaces, 1550–1750, directed by Gail Feigenbaum. As part of this initiative, he took part in scholarly workshops organized jointly by Sapienza University of Rome and the American Academy in Rome and published the first results of his research in the Getty Research Journal (2012). A further contribution appeared in The Display of Art in the Long Renaissance, edited by Gail Feigenbaum (Los Angeles: Getty Publications).

His research focuses on the history of collecting, the display of early modern collections, museum formation, exhibition practices, and the history of the decorative arts. He has extensively investigated the artistic patronage of the Caetani family between the late sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, publishing the monograph I Caetani di Sermoneta. Storia artistica di un antico casato tra Roma e l’Europa nel Seicento (Campisano, 2010). This study highlighted the family's importance within the Roman artistic milieu and reconstructed the history of Colantonio’s altarpiece from its original setting in the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore in Naples to its fragmentation and subsequent museum display.

His research has also examined the role of stonecutters and sculptors involved in the design and execution of marble decorative schemes in major Roman and Neapolitan chapels, as well as their participation in the economic and production processes related to polychrome marble craftsmanship. More recently, he has studied Prince Lelio Orsini and his art collection, reconstructing its display within the now-lost palace in Piazza Navona and tracing its dispersal across Europe between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The results of this research were published in La collezione del principe Lelio Orsini nel palazzo di piazza Navona a Roma (Campisano, 2013).

In the field of museum studies and museography, he has investigated the acquisition of the sculptural group known as the Pietà of Palestrina, formerly attributed to Michelangelo. This case represented a significant political and cultural issue for the Italian state during the twentieth century, ultimately leading to the removal of the sculpture from its original altar and its transfer to Florence, where it is now housed in the Galleria dell’Accademia.

He contributed to the exhibition Cacce principesche (Villa d’Este, Tivoli), curated by Francesco Solinas, and collaborated with the Italian Encyclopaedia Institute (Treccani) on a web-TV feature devoted to hunting culture and art in the early modern period.

He has also conducted extensive research on the collecting practices of the Orsini family from the Renaissance to the Baroque period, focusing on artists such as Donato Bramante, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Alessandro Turchi, Paul Brill, and Orfeo Boselli. His work on Orsini patronage includes the first complete catalogue of the Orsini medal collection preserved in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

His current research focuses on Vincenzo Camuccini, Antonio Canova and their connections with the Lucchese collector Giuseppe Binda, as well as on the presence and dissemination of Baroque sculpture in peripheral areas of Lazio, Campania, and Abruzzo.

He is a Full Member of the Società Romana di Storia Patria, an Honorary Member of the Amici dei Musei di RomaAssociation, and a member of the Centro Studi per la Poesia Contemporanea Cosimo Russo. He serves on the Scientific Boards of the journals Storia dell’Arte, Critica d’Arte, Ricche Minere, and Studi Storici Lucchesi, and is a member of the Commission for Furniture and Decorative Arts of the Associazione Antiquari d’Italia.