This text is based on notes and sketches prepared for an undergraduate course titled "Chemistry of the Environment and of Cultural Property," which Giorgio Torraca taught at the "Valle Giulia" Faculty ...

Ancient Iran, historically known as Persia, was the dominant nation of western Asia for over a millennium (about 550 BC–AD 650), with three native dynasties controlling an empire of unprecedented size ...

Among their rigorous preparations for eternity, ancient Egyptians developed an intricate set of religious writings to help the deceased achieve a blessed afterlife in union with the solar god Re and ...

For nearly 3,000 years a series of kingdoms flourished in ancient Nubia (present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan). The region was rich in sought-after resources such as gold and ivory and its ...

Blue paper has been a popular artist material since the fifteenth century. Crafted from blue rags formed into sheets, this humble material that required expert knowledge to produce and had a profound ...

Still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven, coined in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The impetus for this term came as artists created ...

Paolo Veneziano led the premier painter’s workshop in late medieval Venice, producing work ranging from large complex altarpieces to small paintings intended for personal devotion. This focused ...

Like landscape or still life, the nude is one of the great traditional forms in art. An ideal perfected in sculpture by the ancient Greeks, it became the cornerstone of formal artistic training in ...

If Walter Gropius’s 1919 manifesto had proposed a radical vision for a new institution that would erode distinctions between artists and artisans, it was the school’s unprecedented pedagogy, ...

Renaissance artists transformed the course of western art history by making the nude central to their art. Drawing inspiration from classical sculpture and the study of the live model, these artists ...

Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio (Italian, 1571—1610), forged a new path in the history of European painting. His bold, naturalistic style, which emphasized the common humanity of the ...

Irving Penn was one of the most respected photographers of the 20th century. In a career that began at the premiere fashion magazine Vogue in 1943 and spans more than six decades, he created ...