Loren Partridge, Ph.D. Harvard University, is Professor of the History of Art and Italian Studies. A scholar of Italian Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture with an emphasis on Rome, Florence, and Venice, he has approached his topic through genres: urbanism (fortifications, streets, public sculpture); churches (altarpieces, chapels, tombs), palaces and palace decoration (devotional works, portraits, halls of state) and villas and villa decoration (frescoes, gardens, fountains). His recent publications include Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel (Braziller, 1996) and The Art of Renaissance Rome, 1400-1600 (Abrams, 1996). In progress is a general text on Renaissance art and a monograph on the late sixteenth century Villa Farnese at Caprarola north of Rome.
