Dr. Mark Rosen

Associate Professor, The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History

I am an art historian and historian of cartography specializing in late medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Europe. Among my interests are the ways in which the sciences impacted the arts and the points of contact between the fields. In my undergraduate courses, students are introduced not only to the greatest artworks of early modernity but also to its documents, maps, religious practices, political ideologies, and urban forms. I also regularly teach from local collections like the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, the Meadows Museum at SMU, and the Dallas Museum of Art.

My book, The Mapping of Power in Renaissance Italy: Painted Cartographic Cycles in Social and Intellectual Context (Cambridge University Press, 2015), bridges the disciplines of art history and the histories of science, cartography, and geography. The study details how the Florentine court utlized painted maps in the late sixteenth century, a moment better known for its printed maps and atlases. It touches upon the ways in which maps functioned beyond their geographical content, and the ways in which their display worked together with other types of decoration to make statements about dominion and power. In 2015 the book received the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference's inaugural Founders' Prize for best first book manuscript in early modern studies (ca. 1450-ca. 1660). My current project concerns the visual rhetorics of the bird's-eye view in early modern Europe.

I have also published articles and reviews in a number of international art-historical and historical journals, including The Art Bulletin, Renaissance Quarterly, The Sixteenth Century Journal, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, Oud Holland, Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, Nuncius, and CAA Reviews. Among my recent publications are "Pietro Tacca's Quattro Mori and the Conditions of Slavery in Early Seicento Tuscany" (The Art Bulletin [2015]: 34–57) and "Vasari and vedute" (Source: Notes in the History of Art [2015]: 31–38).

I have received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; the Huntington Library; the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin; the Renaissance Society of America; the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; and the Fondazione Roberto Longhi in Florence. I serve on the Executive Committee of the Italian Art Society and presently act as its Webmaster.

I offer courses covering European art between the years 1200 and 1700. Among my regular offerings upper-level courses are AHST 3313 (Medieval Art), AHST 3315 (Art of the Renaissance) and AHST 3316 (Art of the Baroque), as well as topics courses on subjects such as Medieval Venice, Love and Marriage in the Renaissance, and Leonardo da Vinci. In these classes, students learn not simply about the origins or subjects of aesthetic objects but also the deep cultural and societal meaning underpinning them. I regularly involve contemporary perspectives on "old" art, such as involving the students in controversies about restorations, attributions, and museum practice. In fall 2016, I will teach an undergraduate class on "writing across the arts," involving not only art history and criticism but also writings on music, theater, and film. My graduate courses have included courses on the History of Cartography, Style and Mannerism, Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, Artists' Biographies, and Narrativity in Art.

I am a native Californian who, before moving to Dallas, lived most of his life in that state or in Italy. I earned my doctorate in History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, the university where I also received my B.A. in English. Prior to arriving at UT Dallas, I held a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Medici Archive Project in the Archivio di Stato of Florence, Italy, working of the transcription and translation of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century documents.

Education

Ph.D., History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
M.A., History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
B.A., English, University of California, Berkeley

Areas of Specialization

History of Art, Early Modern Art and History, History of Slavery, History of Cartography, The Social History of Art, European-Ottoman Relations

Mark Rosen Faculty Profile