Bldg/Room/Zip: Art 115-0089
Phone: (408)924-4394
Fax: (408)924-4326
Email: grossman@email.sjsu.edu

Medieval and Renaissance Italian Art, and Western Architecture and Urbanism from Antiquity to the Baroque

I earned my B.A. at the University of California, Berkeley and my M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. at Columbia University. Although I began my graduate career as a specialist in French Gothic architecture, and wrote my Master’s thesis under Stephen Murray on the structure and liturgical function of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, I soon developed an intense passion for Italy. During my three years in New York, I enrolled in three surveys and two seminars at the Institute of Fine Arts, where Marvin Trachtenberg introduced me to Italian medieval and Renaissance architecture and urbanism. Upon completing my coursework, I relocated to Siena, Italy and resided there for seven years, conducting research for my dissertation and lecturing to groups of students and intellectuals. My project was supported in large part by fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. Murray and Trachtenberg co-sponsored my doctoral thesis and were joined by Joseph Connors, David Friedman and Clemente Marconi on my defense committee.

My dissertation, entitled “Pro Honore Comunis Senensis at Pulchritudine Civitatis: Civic Architecture and Political Ideology in the Republic of Siena, 1270-1420,” is the first synthetic treatment of the total architectural production of an Italian city-state. It explores the iconographical content and symbolic meaning of Sienese architectural forms, considered within their historical and cultural context, and details the strategic functions of various types of municipal edifices, such as fountains, fortifications, loggias and administrative buildings. It also includes a precise new chronology for the Palazzo Pubblico and the adjacent Piazza del Campo, which together constituted the government headquarters of the Guelf regime. At present, my research is focused on the political iconography of the Sienese commune, as it is manifest in painting, sculpture, architecture, coinage, seals and manuscripts. In addition, I am investigating the evolution of the Italian civic palace, from its origins in the twelfth century through its final transformations in the Quattrocento.