Contact details

The Courtauld Institute of Art

Somerset House

Strand

London

WC2R 0RN

francesco.lucchini@courtauld.ac.uk



Francesco Lucchini read Philosophy at the University of Milan, before coming to The Courtauld where he took his MA in Early Sienese Painting (2003) and completed his PhD thesis (2009) ‘Objects at work: A material and cultural history of the reliquaries of St. Anthony of Padua in the Basilica del Santo, ca 1231-1438’ under the supervision of Dr. Joanna Cannon. He has been Visiting Lecturer at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and at The Courtauld.


Current research/interests


Stemming from a direct engagement with the material and technical aspects of medieval artefacts, Francesco’s research focuses on the critical nexus linking objects to ideas and cultural representations. In particular, he is interested in reconciling the study of how objects are made with the study of how objects mean and function in specific social and religious contexts. Current research interests/projects include:

  • Late mediaeval Italian goldsmith’s work, with specific attention to Padua and the Veneto

  • The material life of late medieval goldsmith’s work, and in particular the question of how objects were manipulated, re-made and unmade by repeated physical manipulations of different individuals, at different times, manifesting different social and cultural practices.

  • The interior of the Basilica del Santo in Padua and its decoration before Donatello and, more in general, the spatial setting and decoration of late medieval Northern Italian mendicant churches.

  • Material and technical aspects of early Italian painting, and in particular issues of fragmentation and reconstruction

  • History of the history of art, and in particular the history of the technical art history



Programmes taught during the current academic year


BA Options: Master and Assistant: the Making of Art in the Later Middle Ages


Research Projects Organised at The Courtauld


The Clever Object Research Project (co-organised)  (2009 – 2010)

Research Project sponsored by the Research Forum. Bringing together art historians from different fields, from Europe and the US, this inter-institutional project seeks to enhance original collaborative scholarship on objects and their modes of cleverness, exploring and defining the category of the “clever object” as a tool of art-historical interpretation for scholars working across the discipline. Further information.

The Material Life of Things Research Project (2010 – 2011)

Research Project sponsored by the Research Forum. Drawing together researchers from different areas of expertise including curators and conservators, this research project aims to explore the material lives of artefacts in a variety of media, encouraging object-based, methodological and theoretical discussions relating to the shifting relationship between artefacts, people and environments throughout the life history of particular objects or classes of objects. Further information.



Recent/forthcoming publications



Cover: Henrietta Simson, Where Jason Sowed the Dragon's Teeth, oil on panel, 2009

"Things that Are Not There. Crafting Nature, Making History” in Art and Nature: Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture, Immediations Conference Papers No. 1, edited by Laura Cleaver, Kathryn Gerry and Jim Harris (London, 2009)

“Face, Counterface, Counterfeit. The Lost Silver Visage of the Reliquary of St. Anthony’s Jawbone” in Meaning in Motion. Semantics of Movement in Medieval Art and Architecture, edited by G. Freni and N. Zchomelidse (Princeton University Press, Forthcoming, 2010)

“The Making of a Legend. The Reliquary of the Tongue and the Representation of St Anthony of Padua as a Preacher” in Franciscan Preaching, edited by T. J. Johnson (Brill, Forthcoming, 2010)

“Circolazione di reliquie e committenza di reliquiari al Santo nel primo Quattrocento” in Cultura arte e committenza al Santo nel Quattrocento, edited by G. Baldissin Molli and L. Bertazzo (Padua, Forthcoming, 2010)