Dr Robert Maniura — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Biography

After a previous career in financial management in industry, I studied the history of art at the Courtauld Institute, taking my PhD in 1998.

I have held Fellowships at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, and the Netherlands Inter-University Art History Institute in Florence, a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship and a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship.

I joined Birkbeck in 2001. I lecture on the art of both Northern and Southern Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance at BA and MA level. I welcome enquiries about potential research in Medieval and Renaissance art.

Research

Research overview

My recent research has concentrated on the role of the visual in devotion in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, with a special focus on images associated with miracles. I have pursued these interests in two books: Pilgrimage to Images in the Fifteenth Century: The Origins of the Cult of Our Lady of Częstochowa (2004) and Art and Miracle in Renaissance Tuscany (2018).

Much of my research has focused on the fifteenth century and my current project, begun with the support of a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, explores the implications of taking a broader view of the art of that conventionally pivotal period.

Research Centres and Institutes

Member of Steering Committee, Medieval and Early Modern Worlds
Member of Steering Committee, Vasari Research Centre

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research on any aspect of Late medieval or early Renaissance art.

Current Supervisions

Joint Principal Supervisor for 1 Birkbeck students
Principal Supervisor for 1 Birkbeck students
Second Supervisor for 1 Birkbeck students

Teaching

Teaching modules

Debates in Art History (AHVM091S4)
Art and Devotion in Fifteenth-Century Italy (ARVC118S7)
Art and the Sacred in the Middle Ages (ARVC179S6)
Art History: A Survey (ARVC205S4)
Material and Process in Art (ARVC207S4)
Dissertation (ARVC220S6)
Art and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (ARVC239S5)
Frameworks: Histories and Theories of Art, Architecture, Photography (ARVC247S7)
The Renaissance: Concepts and Issues (ENHU070S7)

Publications

Article

Maniura, Robert (2020) Valuing the work of Jaume Huguet: a painter and his materials. Oxford Art Journal ISSN 0142-6540.
Maniura, Robert (2009) Ex votos, art and pious performance. Oxford Art Journal 32 (3), pp. 409-425. ISSN 0142-6540.
Maniura, Robert (2009) Persuading the absent saint: image and performance in Marian devotion. Critical Inquiry 35 (3), pp. 629-654. ISSN 0093-1896.

Book

Maniura, Robert (2018) Art and miracle in Renaissance Tuscany. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108551649.

Book Section

Maniura, Robert (2017) Agency and miraculous images. In: Jurkowlaniec, G. and Matyjaszkiewicz, I. and Sarnecka, Z. (eds.) The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Materials, Power and Manipulation. Routledge Research in Art History. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 63. ISBN 9781138054226.
Maniura, Robert (2016) Agency and miraculous images. In: Jurkowlaniec, G. and Matyjaszkiewicz, I. and Sarnecka, Z. (eds.) The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Materials, Power and Manipulation. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 63. ISBN 9781138054226.
Maniura, Robert (2013) Two Marian image shrines in Fifteenth-Century Tuscany, the ‘Iconography of Architecture’ and the limits of ‘Holy Competition’. In: Davies, P. and Howard, D. and Pullan, W. (eds.) Architecture and Pilgrimage, 1000–1500: Southern Europe and Beyond. Basingstoke, UK: Ashgate. pp. 213-230. ISBN 9781472410832.
Maniura, Robert (2011) Image, space and holy place in the cult of Our Lady of Częstochowa. In: Opacic, Zoe and Timmermann, A. (eds.) Image, Memory and Devotion: Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley. Studies in Gothic Art. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. pp. 129-134. ISBN 9782503531687.

Conference Item

Maniura, Robert Balzamo, Nicolas and Boltanski, Ariane and Leutrat, Estelle, eds. Frazer, Wittgenstein and Harry Potter: an approach to the ritual manipulation of images. L’image miraculeuse : théories, pratiques et représentations dans le monde chrétien XIVe-XVIIe s, Rennes, France