The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image DatabaseCaroline Bruzelius (Ph.D., Yale University) teaches medieval architecture, urbanism and sculpture in France and Italy at Duke University. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Society of Antiquaries, London. From 2004 to 2008 she served as Director of the American Academy in Rome, where she was a Fellow and a Resident. She has received numerous grants and awards, including the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. She recently published Preaching, Building and Burying: Friars in the Medieval City (Yale University Press, 2014). Her book on Naples, The Stones of Naples: Church Building in the Angevin Kingdom, was published in 2004 (Italian ed., 2005) and The Thirteenth Century Church at Saint-Denis, in 1986. For more information, visit her online list of publications and her university homepage.
In addition to the Kingdom of Sicily Image Database, Bruzelius is a founder of several important Digital Humanities initiatives: the Wired! Group at Duke University; and Visualizing Venice with IUAV University in Venice and the University of Padua. Both initiatives integrate digital technologies with teaching and research, with a special focus on modeling and mapping change over time in buildings and cities. She has helped establish Digital Humanities workshops in visualization technologies at Duke University and at Venice International University.
Paola Vitolo (Ph.D., University "Federico II" in Naples) is Associate Professor (Professore Associato) at the University of "Federico II" in Naples (formerly at the University of Catania, 2010-2017) (Italy). Her field of specialization is medieval art and patronage in the Angevin and Aragonese Kingdom of Sicily, with special emphasis on relations between the late medieval European courts. Her research includes: the monuments and symbols of the visual and architectural representation of power; female patronage; the reuse and reinterpretation of medieval works of art; the social status of medieval artists; and the organization of medieval workshops. Her research is based on the analysis of textual and figural documentation, including the study of historic images of monuments and cities. She has published the drawings, watercolors and prints of Neapolitan artists and the German artist Johann Anton Ramboux (published in "Il Medioevo napoletano nei taccuini di Johann Anton Ramboux", Prospettiva, 119-120 [2005/2007], pp. 127-144).
Vitolo received her Ph.D. in 2007 with a dissertation on the Incoronata in Naples and the patronage of Queen Joanna I of Naples (La chiesa della Regina. Giovanna I d'Angiò, l'Incoronata di Napoli e Roberto di Oderisio, Roma Viella, 2008). She has been awarded fellowships and travel grants from various institutions, including the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Gesellschaf für Kunstgeschichte), Rome; The Warburg Institute, London; and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) at the Universität der Künste, Berlin. Her research has been published in specialized journals and has been presented at conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad. A list of her publications can be found here.