Academic staff
Jill Burke
Senior Lecturer, Italian Renaissance Art
Email: jill.burke@ed.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 131 650 4112
Location:
Room no: 3.03C, 1st Floor of Maltings side of 20 Chambers St.Outline Biography
Jill Burke is a specialist in Italian Renaissance visual culture. Her first book, Changing Patrons: Social Identity and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Florence, was published in 2004, and was widely reviewed as a major contribution towards the understanding of renaissance art patronage. Since then, as well as continuing to write on the visual arts and society in renaissance Florence, she has published articles on Leonardo da Vinci and meaning in the early sixteenth century, artistic identity in early sixteenth century Florence, and sexuality and spirituality in High Renaissance Rome. She has also edited two books focussing on Rome - Art and Identity in Early Modern Rome (co-edited with Michael Bury) and Rethinking the High Renaissance. She is now finishing her book on the renaissance nude, and is Associate Editor of the journal Renaissance Studies, 2012-17.
Jill was a Philip Leverhulme Prize holder, 2009-11, in recognition of her "outstanding" contributions to Art History. She previously held research fellowships in the AHRC Court Culture in Early Modern Rome project, the Dutch Institute for Art History in Florence and the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence (Villa I Tatti). She helped to found, and was the first Research Director of, the Edinburgh Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and was a founder member of the Prato Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Membership of Professional Organisations
- Committee member of Leonardo da Vinci Society
- Renaissance Society of America
- Association of Art Historians
- Prato Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
- Board Member of Society for Renaissance Studies
Research Interests
Jill's research focus is on the interaction between visual culture and a broader social world in renaissance Italy. The relationship between the visual arts and personal, social and bodily identity have been a constant theme in her work.
For more information about Jill's research, visit http://edinburgh.academia.edu/JillBurke, or Jill's research blog
Research activity
Jill is currently working on a number of projects - including:
- The Italian Renaissance Nude: Nakedness in Art and Life 1400-1530 - a book about the social understanding of nakedness and the development of the artistic nude in renaissance Italy.
- "Between Apes and Angels: Human and Animal in the Early Modern World" - a collaborative project looking at animal/human relationships pre Darwin (with colleagues across the University of Edinburgh, including Vetinary studies and Sculpture at ECA). This has won Challenge Investment Funding, and will result in an exhibition at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Oct 2014-Jan 2015 and associated events.
- "Beauty by Design: Refashioning the Renaissance", a project with Patricia Allerston (National Galleries of Scotland) and Mal Burkinshaw (Design, ECA) using renaissance art to think about fashion design and body image, culminating in an exhibition, 2014-15.
She is the Associate Editor of the journal Renaissance Studies, 2012-17,and convenor of the Society for Renaissance Studies Publications Committee.
Publications
Publications list for Jill Burke
Supervision
Projects supervised by Jill Burke
Teaching
Courses/Programmes
Jill is keen on taking advantage of new technologies for teaching, and committed to sharing course materials online. This year, she is teaching a fourth-year undergraduate courses, the Renaissance Body; is the convenor for History of Art 1, and the Programme Director for the Renaissance and Early Modern Studies MSc. She also contributes to the core course for this programme. Each year alongside colleagues in History, we take masters and research postgrads for an intensive course in Florence or Venice - Medieval and Renaissance Italy: Objects, Texts and Practices. See Jill's teaching pages for more information.
Supervision
Jill welcomes research students for single or joint supervision for projects relating to renaissance visual culture. She is currently supervising research on renaissance cosmetics, patronage of the Vespucci family, emotion and Michelangelo, and the art patronage of exiles.
Keywords
- Renaissance
This article was published on Oct 30, 2012