Alexis Culotta

Alexis Culotta specializes in the art and architecture of sixteenth-century Rome. Her research investigates the working relationships of artists and how the tensions of competition, collaboration, and innovation drove artistic and architectural practice in the Eternal City and beyond. More generally, her research and teaching interests include all topics relating to the Renaissance and Baroque eras, but of particular appeal are the Renaissance reception of and response to antiquity, the modes of workshop exchange during the era, and the reach of and reaction to period thought around the globe, and the benefits of digital humanities applications within the field. Of parallel interest is the evolution of Renaissance and Baroque ideologies into the eighteenth century among Italian artists amid the rise of the Grand Tour and the convergence of the art and souvenir markets.

Her first book, Tracing the Visual Language of Raphael’s Circle to 1527 (Brill, 2020), explored how the Renaissance artist’s style – one infused with borrowed visual quotations from other artists both past and present – proved influential in his relationship with associate Baldassare Peruzzi and in the development of the artists within his thriving workshop. Shedding new light on the important, yet often-overshadowed, figures within this network, this book calls upon key case studies to illustrate how this visual language and its recombination evolved during Raphael’s Roman career and subsequently served as a springboard for artistic innovation in the years following Raphael’s death.

Her current projects are centered in the realm of the digital humanities. The first is the development of Vicino, a digital visualization of Raphael’s workshop and its various associates within an online platform that offers new ways to visualize the ways in which this network operated and exchanged ideas. The second is a developing project funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that aims to document the rapidly vanishing tradition of the sixteenth-century Roman frescoed façade in the digital realm. This latter project will also form the core of her second book project, The Frescoed Façade in Renaissance Roman Visual Culture (forthcoming).

Alexis Culotta is an Affiliated Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Kress Foundation, The Renaissance Society of America, the Italian Art Society, and the New Foundation for Art History. Prior to coming to Tulane, she taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Northern Illinois University, and the Newberry Library.

Recent and Forthcoming Publications

"Reworking Religiosity: Raphael's Late Altarpieces and the Workshop Perspective," in S. Cody and T. Lynn Hunt, eds., The Mannerist Altarpiece: Painting and Religious Experience in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Amsterdam: Brill, forthcoming 2024).

"Marcantonio Raimondi's Naked Youth and its Sources," Print Quarterly, vol. XLI (2024).

“Haec Domus Expectet: The Casa Sander Façade and Constructing Sixteenth-Century German Identity in Rome.” Opus Incertum 8 (1) (2022):

https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/oi/issue/view/588/179

“The Early Modern Italian Influence on New Orleans' Art Collections,” in L. Estevez, ed., Collecting, Conserving, Documenting, and Exhibiting Early Modern Art in the Southern US (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021).

Tracing the Visual Language of Raphael’s Circle to 1527 (Amsterdam: Brill, 2020).

“Self-Fashioning from the Screen into the Studiolo: Reframing the Renaissance in Remote Learning.” Sixteenth Century Journal vol. 51, no. S1 (Summer 2020).

“Baldessarre Peruzzi and the Architecture of Painting,” Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 50, no. 4 (Winter 2019).

"The Dramatic Side of Breaking Bad: Raphael, Peruzzi, and a Remarkable Revival of Vitruvius' Scaenae Frons," in J. Fischer, ed., Breaking with Convention in Italian Visual Culture (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, August 2017).

Digital Scholarship

“Raphael and His Roman Workshop”, The Renaissance World - Routledge Resources Online, ed. by S. Sutherland and K. Poole (Routledge, 2022): https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367347093-RERW133-1

Contributions to the Art Market Dictionary/Bloomsbury Art Markets (2022)

Michelangelo - Studies for the Libyan Sibyl: https://smarthistory.org/michelangelo-studies-for-the-libyan-sibyl-recto-studies-for-the-libyan-sibyl-and-a-small-sketch-for-a-seated-figure-verso/

The Role of the Workshop in Italian Renaissance Art: https://smarthistory.org/workshop-italian-renaissance-art/

Preparatory Drawing During the Italian Renaissance, An Introduction: https://smarthistory.org/italian-renaissance-drawing/