Dr. Francesca S. Croce

• Italian Baroque Art
• Seventeenth Century Rome
• Art and Medicine
• History of Collecting
• Art Theory and Criticism
• Cross-disciplinary Networks

Kurzbiographie

Francesca S. Croce is a Postdoctoral University Assistant in the Department of Art History, supporting the Chair of Early Modern and Modern Art History, Professor Sebastian Schütze. Her current postdoctoral project, Cura et Cultura: Physicians, Artists, and the Culture of Collecting in Baroque Rome, investigates the intersections of medicine, visual culture, and collecting in seventeenth-century Rome, focusing on physicians as patrons, collectors, and cultural intermediaries within the city’s elite artistic and intellectual circles.

Croce has been a Guest Scholar in the Bibliotheca Hertziana Research Group “Visualizing Science in Media Revolutions” and a Research Assistant at the Josephinum Medical History Museum in Vienna. She has published in Paragone Arte, the Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, and Anales de Historia del Arte, among other journals, and is the editor of Under the Lens: The Art of Discovery (Campisano Editore, 2024). Her teaching was recognized with the Teaching Award of the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna (2025).

She holds a doctorate from the University of Vienna, completed with the support of the DOC Fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a master’s degree in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Columbia University. Her doctoral research examined the influence of Raphael on seventeenth century biographer Giovan Pietro Bellori (1613–1696) and artist Carlo Maratti (1625–1713).

Edited Volumes

Under the Lens: The Art of Discovery. Rome: Campisano Editore, 2024.

Articles

–  “‘Quel quadro che atterrisce tutti’: Ludovico Carracci and Guercino for Bologna’s Santi Gregorio e Siro.” In Under the Lens: The Art of Discovery, ed. Francesca S. Croce, 99–110. Rome: Campisano Editore, 2024.

–  “Annibale Carracci’s Lasting Influence. A Newly Identified Nude Study by Andrea Sacchi.” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte LXVII (2023): 137–45.

–  “A Friendship that Defined the Seicento: Giovan Pietro Bellori and Carlo Maratti.” In Art et amitié aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles en Europe, ed. Marine Roberton and Charlotte Rousset, 193–211. Paris: Éditions du GRHAM, 2023.

–  “An Indignant Letter: Carlo Maratti and Raphael as Paradigm.” Paragone Arte, no. 171 (2023): 42–59, ill. 54–55.

–  “Hic est Raphael? Carlo Maratti and the Figure of the Artist in the Seventeenth Century.” Anales de Historia del Arte 33 (2023): 61–73.

Book Reviews

–  Review of Katherine Jean McHale, Ingenious Italians: Immigrant Artists in Eighteenth-Century Britain. London: Harvey Miller, 2024. Frühneuzeit-Info (2025).

–  Review of Stella Rudolph and Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, Carlo Maratti (1625–1713) tra la magnificenza del Barocco e il sogno d’Arcadia. Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2024. Frühneuzeit-Info (2024).

Exhibition Reviews

–  Review of “Dealing in Splendour. A History of the European Art Market,” curated by Stephan Koja, Yvonne Wagner and Cristian Huemer, Liechtenstein Garden Palace, Vienna, Jan.–Apr. 2026. Il Giornale dell’Arte.

• The Austrian Academy of Sciences’ (ÖAW) Doc Fellowship (30 months)
• The Austrian Academy of Sciences’(ÖAW) Go.Investigatio Fellowship (1 month)
• University of Vienna’s Short-term Grants Abroad (KWA) (2 months)
  Host Institutions: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid and The Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome (Jun. 2026)

–    “Staging Anatomy: Image-Making and Imperial Display in the Josephinum, Vienna.” Conference: “Image Making as Knowledge Production.”

Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Madrid (May 2026)

–    “Imperial Anatomy on Paper: Art, Pedagogy, and Cultural Exchange in the Josephinum Drawings.” Conference: “Cultura en movimiento: élites, coleccionismo y circulación artística.”

Columbia University, New York City (Apr. 2025)

–    “After Bernini. Carlo Maratti and the Art of Self-Fashioning.” Art Humanities Lecture Series.

Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Boston (Mar. 2025)

–    “Beyond the Canvas: The Role of Drawings in Baroque Self-Representation.” Panel: “Stepping Outside of the Workshop: The Lives of Drawings in the Early Modern Period.”

Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Chicago (Mar. 2024)

–    “A New Prince of Painters? Carlo Maratti (1625–1713) as Raphael’s Late Seicento Heir.” Panel: “New Perspectives on Italian Art IV.”

Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris (Jun. 2022)

–    “A Friendship that Defined the Seicento: Giovan Pietro Bellori and Carlo Maratti.” International conference: Art et amitié aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles en Europe.

Ohio State University, Columbus (Jul. 2022)

–    “Power and Permanence: Raphael’s Impact and Legacy in the Seicento.” Raphael & the Dresden Tapestries Symposium.

Institute of Historical Research, University of London (Nov. 2021)

–    “Collecting Baroque in America.”

Seminar Series: Collecting and Display