Art, Architecture & History

LOUISA BUCK MA Cambridge, MA Courtauld Institute, Journalist, broadcaster and art critic, reviewer for Radio 4's "Front Row". Author of "Moving Targets : A Users' Guide to British Art Now" - published by Tate Gallery Publications and "Owning Art: the Contemporary Art Collectors Handbook" Turner Prize Judge 2005. Contemporary Art Correspondent for The Art Newspaper and a regular contributor to Artforum, Vogue and The Guardian.

BRUNA CARUSO Graduated in History of Art and Venice, works for the Superintendency of Art, teaches for the Hofstra University and Smithsonian Study Tours. She has written for various publications on Venetian Art and Architecture.

EDWARD CHANEY is Professor of Fine and Decorative Arts at Southampton University and Chair of the History of Collecting Research Centre. He is the author of many books including “The Grand Tour and the Great Rebellion” (1985) and “The Evolution of English Collecting: Receptions of Italian Art during the Tudor and Stuart Periods” (2003).

JILL DUNKERTON MA, Restorer in the Conservation Dept., National Gallery, London. Author of numerous publications on restoration and the history of painting techniques.

DAVID EKSERDJIAN Professor of Art History and Film, University of Leicester, Trustee, The National Gallery, London.

CHARLES HOPE MA D.Phil., Director of the Warburg Institute, London University. Formerly Slade Professor of Fine Art, Oxford University. An Organiser of the Genius of Venice exhibition at the Royal Academy, author of "Titian", and other publications.

DEBORAH HOWARD MA Cambridge, MA & PhD. Courtauld Institute, FSA, FSA Scot., Hon. FRIAS and FRSE. Professor of Architectural History, Fellow of St John's College and Head of the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge. Author of "Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice", "The Architectural History of Venice", "Venice and the East."

FREDERICK LAURITZEN MA (Oxon), Phd Columbia, Post Doctoral Fellow at the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose in Bologna. His field of research is Byzantine literature and culture.

PETER LAURITZEN MA, Resident in Venice since 1967, author of "Palaces of Venice","Venice - a thousand years of Culture and Civilisation", "The Islands and Lagoons of Venice", 'The UNESCO report; Venice Restored', editor at large of Architectural Digest.

VIVIEN LOVELL BA, FRSA, Hon FRIBA, is a contemporary art curator specialising in the field of permanent and temporary public commissions. Director of Modus Operandi Art Consultants, formerly Founder Director of Public Art Commissions Agency She was co-publisher of "Public:Art:Space" (Merrell Holberton 1998).

NIGEL MCGILCHRIST MA(Oxon.), has lived and worked as an Art Historian in Rome for over twenty five years. He has taught at Rome University and been Director of the Anglo-Italian Institute, and External Consultant to the Superintendence of Fine Arts of the Italian Government. Lectures widely in the USA on art and archaeology at museums and universities. He is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Blue Guides series, and currently writing the new Blue Guide to the monuments and archaeology of the Greek Islands.

NICHOLAS PENNY PhD., Director of The National Gallery, London. Formerly Clore Curator of Renaissance Art, National Gallery, formerly Slade Professor of Fine Art, Oxford and Keeper of Dept. of Western Art, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Senior Curator, European Sculpture, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Books include "Raphael"(with Roger Jones), "Tastes and the Antique"(with Francis Haskell). Responsible for organising exhibitions and catalogues of numerous artists, including Reynolds.

JASPER SHARP MA, University of Edinburgh. Former Exhibitions Organizer at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Now an independent curator & writer based in Vienna, Austria.

SUSAN STEER MA, PhD. Lecturer (part time) History of Art, University of Bristol and co-tutor in History of Art for the Warwick University "Venice term" BA and MA programmes 'Art in Northern Italy 1200-1600'.

NICHOLAS TRUE CBE, MA, Former Whitgift Research Student at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in the field of Byzantine Studies. Publications on Byzantium.

ANDREW TYLEY Associate Director at Richard Rogers Partnership. Architects responsible for Centre Pompidou, the Lloyds Building, London and the Millenium Project, London.

LOUISA WARMAN BA Courtauld Institute, MA University of Warwick, is an Art Historian resident in Venice since 2000. She works as a translator for art history publications and leads Renaissance and Medieval art history tours in the city.

JON WHITELEY D.Phil., Senior Assistant Keeper, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He has written several books on European Art including the complete catalogues of French drawings in the Ashmolean.

Music

PETER PHILLIPS MA, Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres 2005. Well-known broadcaster and conductor, founder Director of the Tallis Scholars (Gramophone Record of the Year Award 1987), Music critic The Spectator. Publisher of The Musical Times. Director of Music, Merton College, Oxford from autumn 2008.

MATTEO SANSONE PhD. (Edin.) is an expert on operatic literature and his special field is late nineteenth-century Italian opera on which he has published several studies. He runs the opera courses at the British Institute of Florence.

Global Issues

MALCOLM LONGAIR FRS is a British physicist. He was the Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, England from 1991 to 2008. He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society 1996-8 and is a Professorial Fellow and Vice-President of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He was awarded the CBE in the 2000 New Year Honours List.

PROFESSOR SIMON CONWAY MORRIS Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He is renowned for his insights into early evolution and his studies of paleobiology.

DR. BENNY PEISER Director of The Global Warming Policy Foundation in London and is the founder and editor (since 1997) of CCNet, the world’s leading climate policy network. Benny is Senior Lecturer at Liverpoll John Moores University and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Buckingham.

PAUL WILLIAMS Research Fellow, Department of Meteorology, Reading University. A leading environmental specialist, the lead author on climate change commissioned by the European Parliament.

Religions

KAREN ARMSTRONG commentator on religious affairs, who has written extensively on all major religions. Her books include “A History of God”; “The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism”; and “The Spiral Staircase: A Memoir”. Chiefly known for her work on Islam, she has three times addressed members of the US Congress; is an ambassador for the Alliance of Civilizations at the United Nations; and a member of the World Economic Forum discussions on Islam and the West.

World Cinema

RYAN GILBEY is film critic of the New Statesman , and a regular contributor to the Sunday Times, The Guardian and Sight & Sound. He read English and American Literature at Kent University in Canterbury and was named Young Film Journalist of the Year by the Independent in 1993. He is the author of several books, including "It Don't Worry Me", about 1970s US cinema, and a monograph on Groundhog Day in the BFI Modern Classics series.

Literature

GREGORY DOWLING MA (Oxon.), is Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of Venice, has written thrillers set in Italy and England, translator.

ROSELLA ZORZI Professor in American Literature, University of Venice. Director Società Dante Alighieri, Venice.

Various

JANE DA MOSTO MA Oxon, MSc Imperial College London. Co-author of 'The Science of Saving Venice'.

HUGH EDMEADES joined Christie's in 1978 as a specialist in the Furniture Department. Became Director in 1984 and was appointed Chairman of Christie's South Kensington in 2001.

GEOFFREY HUMPHRIES Portrait-figure artist, has lived in Venice for 40 years and exhibited throughout Europe.

WILLIAM LORIMER Christie's Continental Furniture specialist, former director of Education department and NADFAS lecturer.

DAVID NEWBOLD MA (Oxon.), MA(Reading) Linguistics, teaches English at University of Verona, author of English language teaching materials, education broadcaster, journalist, correspondent in Italy for The Times Educational Supplement.

ENRICA ROCCA runs a cookery school with a difference. Born in Venice, Enrica is an Italian cook of note, a flamboyant and passionate chef and restaurateur.

MARK SMITH Photographer, based in Venice, publications include "The Nude: a Visual Reference for the Artist" and "Palaces in Venice."