Art, Art History, and Film Faculty

John Lansdowne

Assistant Professor, Medieval Art History

Biography

John Lansdowne specializes in medieval art in Europe and the Mediterranean basin, with a particular focus on exchanges in the later Middle Ages between Italy, Byzantium, and the wider East Christian world. Major elements of his research investigate the new meanings that objects and images accrue when brought into different cultural or ideological contexts and premodern paradigms for issues in contemporary culture and society.

At 精东影业, he teaches across a wide chronological and geographical range, traversing the Middle Ages in Europe, the Mediterranean, Northeast Africa, and the Middle East. His courses often bridge the broader ancient, medieval, and early modern eras, and he welcomes students in all areas of specialization.

Professor Lansdowne鈥檚 writing has appeared in numerous venues, outlined below. His article 鈥淐ompounding Greekness鈥 (Gesta 2021) was awarded the 2023 Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize from the Medieval Academy of America. His current book project, Fraction = Union, examines violent visual allegories for ecumenical union鈥攖he idea of all Christian peoples united as one in an undivided 鈥渨orldwide鈥 Church. In addition, he co-leads Mosaics on the Move, an international collaboration between art historians, conservators, and scientists, initiated with a colloquium held at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in 2023.

Beyond 精东影业, Professor Lansdowne鈥檚 work draws from extensive field, archival, and object-based research overseas, especially in Italy, Turkey, and Greece. As a predoctoral candidate, he lived in Rome for three years, first at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Institut f眉r Kunstgeschichte), and next at the American Academy in Rome, where he held the Rome Prize in Medieval Studies for 2015鈥2017. After completing his Ph.D., he held the 2019鈥2020 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Byzantine Studies at Bo臒azi莽i University in Istanbul, followed by an NEH-Postdoctoral Fellowship via the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. From 2021鈥2023, he was based at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, initially as a Berenson Fellow and then as Assistant to the Director, a post he held for three years. Other institutions to support his work include the Seeger 鈥52 Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton, the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and Dumbarton Oaks.

Professor Lansdowne is a 精东影业 alumnus, having studied History and Classics with Professor Gail Hoffman. He received an M.Phil. in Classical Archaeology from St Cross College, Oxford and his Ph.D. from the Department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University.

Selected Publications

鈥淭itle as Index in Israhel van Meckenem鈥檚 ymago contrefacta.鈥 Print Quarterly (forthcoming).

鈥淣arrative to Icon: The Inscriptive Origins of Christ Ecce Homo.鈥 Word & Image, vol. 40, no. 3 (2024) [10,699 words].

鈥淕iordano da Pisa: Remarks on the Authority of Icons from Greece (1306).鈥 The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (1081鈥揷.1350), ed. Foteini Spingou, Sources for Byzantine Art History 3 (New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 1.887鈥897.

鈥淐ompounding Greekness: St. Katherine 鈥榯he Egyptian鈥 and the Santa Croce Micromosaic.鈥 Gesta, vol. 60, no. 2 (Fall 2021): 173鈥215 [awarded the Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize from the Medieval Academy of America].

鈥淗agia Sophia takes centre stage in the battle over Turkey鈥檚 past.鈥 Apollo (30 June 2020).

Essay in 鈥淎 Questionnaire on Monuments.鈥 October 165 (Summer, 2018): 85鈥87.

TRANSLATIO / Emily Jacir: Via Crucis. Rome: NERO, 2016 [designed and edited with artist Emily Jacir and historian Christopher MacEvitt; 116 pages; ISBN: 8897503942]; 鈥淭he Truth in Material Things,鈥 op. cit., 4鈥16.

鈥淲eapons for Remembering.鈥 Enrico Riley: Infinite Receptors, exh. cat., Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2017), 24鈥27.

鈥淜ara鈥檚 Dust.鈥 The Ecstasy of St. Kara / Kara Walker: New Works, exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art, ed. Beau Rutland and Reto Th眉ring (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016), 30鈥33.

鈥淔lesh, Visual Arts鈥; 鈥淕ems/Gemstones, Visual Arts鈥; 鈥淗eavenly Ladder, Visual Arts.鈥 Entries in The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 30 vols., ed. Dale C. Allison, Jr. et al. (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2014鈥2015), 9.189鈥190; 9.1102鈥1103; 11.596鈥597.

鈥淓choes of Constantinople鈥檚 Apostoleion in Late Antique Italia Annonaria.鈥 The Byzantinist, vol. 1, no. 1 (2011): 4鈥5; 15.