Prof. Tom Henry, Professor of Art History at the University of Kent, Director IRDS

Tom Henry is Director of the University of Kent in Rome, and divides his time between Canterbury and Rome. He is the author of The Life and Art of Luca Signorelli (Yale University Press, 2012; also published as La Vita e l’arte di Luca Signorelli, Città di Castello, 2014) and numerous other studies of the artist, including essays and entries in the catalogue of the first major international loan exhibition of Signorelli’s art for 60 years (Luca Signorelli: ‘de ingegno et spirto pelegrino’) which was mounted in Perugia, Orvieto and Città di Castello in 2012.

He has been involved in a number of international exhibition projects, co-curating Raphael: from Urbino to Rome at the National Gallery in London (2004-5); and Raphaël à Rome: les dernières années for the Musée du Louvre in Paris in 2012-13 (and previously at the Museo del Prado in Madrid); as well as other exhibitions devoted to Luca Signorelli, Pietro Perugino, Bernardino Pintoricchio and Raphael.

His current research revolves around a study of artists and artistic centres in Central Italy. The project addresses the limitations of monographic and city-centred research by interweaving elements of both into a broader study which will also address issues of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ and questions related to how artists and artistic ideas travelled. The current documentary website is a building block in this project.

His principal articles include: ‘La pré-histoire de Raphaël’ in ed. V. Garibaldi, Le Pérugin, Maître de Raphaël, exh. cat, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, pp. 47-51; ‘Passing the mantle’, Apollo, December 2012, pp. 74-81; ‘Luca Signorelli and the Vitelli of Città di Castello’, in ed. S. Nethersole, J. Harris and P. Rumberg, ‘... una insalata di più erbe’: A Festschrift for Patricia Lee Rubin, London, 2011, pp. 35-45; ‘One picture, ten names, and a proposal for the early career of Luca Signorelli’, 1492. Rivista della Fondazione Piero della Francesca, II.2 (2010), pp. 21-40; ‘Raffaello e Signorelli’ in ed. L. Mochi Onori, Raffaello, Giovanni Santi e Urbino, exh. cat., Urbino (Galleria Nazionale), 2009, pp. 78-83; ‘The patrons, original location and restoration history of Luca Signorelli’s Circumcision in the National Gallery, London’, Studi di Storia dell’Arte, 19 (2008), pp. 35-52; ‘La cultura artistica a Roma fra 1510 e 1524’, in ed. L. Fornari Schianchi, Correggio, exh. cat., Parma (Galleria Nazionale), 2008, pp. 135-139; ‘Perugia 1502’, in ed. V. Garibaldi and F.F. Mancini, Pintoricchio, exh. cat., Perugia (Galleria Nazionale) and Spello (Pinacoteca), 2008, pp. 121-129; ‘Raphael’s patrons in Città di Castello’, in ed. T. Henry & F.F. Mancini, Gli esordi di Raffaello tra Urbino, Città di Castello e Perugia, exh. cat., Città di Castello (Pinacoteca), 2006, pp. 25-69; ‘Nuove prospettive per Raffaello prima di Roma’, Accademia Raffaello. Atti e Studi, 1 (2006), pp. 89-110; ‘Raphael’s altar-piece patrons in Città di Castello’, The Burlington Magazine, CXLIV (2002), pp. 268-278; ‘New documents for Signorelli’s ‘Annunciation’ at Volterra’, The Burlington Magazine, CXL (1998), pp. 474-478.