Abigail Brundin

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The British School in Rome

Abigail Brundin is Professor of Italian and the first female Director of the British School in Rome . She is an expert on the literature and culture of Italy in the renaissance and early modern periods. Prior to her appointment at the BSR, she was Professor of Italian in the Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages, and a Fellow of St Catherine's College, University of Cambridge.

Contents

Education

Brundin received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2000. Her thesis was entitled Vittoria Colonna, 1490-1547: Petrachism and Evangelism in Sixteenth-Century Italy. [1]

Career

Brundin was appointed as lecturer in the Department of Italian at the University of Cambridge in 2002, and as a Fellow of St Catharine’s College in 2000. [2]

Brundin's work focuses on the culture and literature of renaissance and early-modern. She has published on women writers in the early history of printing, beginning with Vittoria Colonna, an Italian poet. She has published on poetry in convents, literature and religious reform, and devotional culture of the home. In 2013, she collaborated with the National Trust to research and curate an exhibition of Italian books at Belton House, Lincolnshire. [3]

Vittoria Colonna, drawn by Michelangelo Vittoria Colonna.jpg
Vittoria Colonna, drawn by Michelangelo

Brundin co-led the project Domestic Devotions: The Place of Piety in the Italian Renaissance Home, 1400-1600, which was funded by a grant of £2.4m from the European Research Council . In 2017, the project developed the exhibition Madonnas and Miracles: the Holy Home in Renaissance Italy, in collaboration with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The exhibition was visited by around 50,000 people. [4] The project book, The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy, was co-authored by Brundin with Deborah Howard and Mary Lavern and was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. [5] The book won the Bainton Prize for History/Theology, and received an Honorable Mention for the Society for Renaissance Studies Book Prize.

Since its establishment in 1901, the British School in Rome has had eighteen directors, none of whom have been women. [6] Brundin began her Directorship at the British School in Rome in September 2021, taking over from interim Director Chris Wickham.

Selected bibliography

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References

  1. Brundin, Abigail Sarah (2000). Vittoria Colonna, 1490-1547 : Petrarchism and Evangelism in sixteenth-century Italy (Ph.D. thesis). University of Cambridge.
  2. "Professor Abigail Brundin | St Catharine's College, Cambridge". www.caths.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-08-26.
  3. "An enchantment with Italy: one family and their books". University of Cambridge. 2013-07-02. Retrieved 2021-08-26.
  4. Grove, M. L. R. (2013-07-01). "Domestic Devotions: the place of piety in the Italian Renaissance home". www.hoart.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-08-26.
  5. "The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy by Abigail Brundin, Deborah Howard | Waterstones". www.waterstones.com. Retrieved 2021-08-26.
  6. "Appointment of Professor Abigail Brundin as the BSR's first female Director « The British School at Rome" . Retrieved 2021-08-26.