Areas of Expertise

Stefanie Solum received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. Her courses on Renaissance art take Italian social and political history as their foundation, and her specific teaching interests include the visual culture of Renaissance Rome; art and private life in Renaissance Florence; Michelangelo; and the role of artists’ biographies in art historical interpretation. All of these courses share the common goal of encouraging students to delve into the subject matter and to step outside of it, considering the ways in which the Renaissance period might inform their aesthetic perceptions and their understanding of the past. Her current book project examines on the literary and spiritual role of Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici, providing new evidence for female patronage of the arts in mid-fifteenth century Florence.