Third Edition of Warwick-Johns Hopkins PhD Summer School Held at the Istituto Veneto
Contributed by Dr Bryan Brazeau
The third edition of the University of Warwick / Johns Hopkins University PhD Summer School took place at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti and the Warwick Venice Centre from June 10th – 20th, 2025.
Co-organised by Dr. Bryan Brazeau and Professor Stephen Campbell (Johns Hopkins University), the programme welcomed 15 doctoral students from Warwick, Johns Hopkins, the University of Cambridge, the Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance (CESR) at the Université de Tours, University of Cologne, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The event was made possible through funding by the Charles S. Singleton Centre for the Study of the Pre-Modern World at Johns Hopkins and the Institute for Advanced Study at Warwick.
The theme was the intersection of the environment and materials in the renaissance world, with a particular focus on Renaissance Venice, examining the use and production of materials such as wood, silk, glass, pigments, canvas, and how they intersect and interact with ecological and environmental concerns.
Guest speakers included Professor Lawrence Principe (Johns Hopkins), Professor April Oettinger (Goucher College), Dr Francesco Luzzini (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale), Dr Cleo Nisse (University of Groningen), Dr Jane Webb (University of Warwick), Professor Eugenio Refini (New York University), Professor Lia Markey (Newberry Library, Chicago), Dr James Pilgrim (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Dr Davide Martini (Università degli Studi di Verona), and Ms. Leslie Contarini from Save Venice, Inc.
Among other topics, we discussed pigments, canvas, printing, ecology of early modern books, glassmaking, hydraulic knowledge in the Veneto, forestry, the paradox of colour, music and auditory environments, Renaissance pastoral (on both land and sea), art conservation, adaptive reuse of urban spaces, and much more.
The programme was a combination of lectures and workshops delivered in Palazzo Franchetti, along with a number of site visits including the Accademia Galleries, Torcello, Murano, Villa di Maser, Villa Foscari (La Malcontenta), the Marciana Library, the Palazzo Ducale, the Correr Museum, the Olympic Theatre in Vicenza, and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. It concluded with a one-day conference of student presentations about their research.
The programme provided a unique opportunity for students to learn from experts in the field, develop their research in new ways, create international academic networks that will serve them throughout their academic careers, and to share their developing research.