Dorigen Caldwell

Overview

Biography

I did my BA in Art History at UCL, folllowed by a Masters and PhD at the Warburg Institute, University of London. I first taught at Birkbeck as an Associate Lecturer in 1998 and have held a permanent position since 2005. I was awarded a Leverhulme Study Abroad Studentship in 1999 to undertake postdoctoral research in Rome where I also taught at the American University in Rome and at Trinity College, Rome campus. I have also taught at UCL.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of London, 1998

Honours and awards

• Leverhulme Research Fellowship, Leverhulme Trust, November 2020

Research

Research interests

• Early Modern Rome
• Religious Imagery and the Catholic Reformation
• The City of Rome
• Text and Iimage in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque

Research overview

My main research interests at present focus on the art of the later sixteenth century in Italy and most particularly in Rome. In recent years I have been looking at Marian cults in Central Italy, with a focus on an Umbrian church built around a miraculous image of the Virgin. I also have a longstanding interest in the cult that grew up around the Madonna di Loreto. I am currently working on a chapel in the Roman church of Sant'Onofrio that was decorated at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and am working towards a book exploring the imagery, patronage and broader political and devotional context of early modern Rome.

In recent years I have published on later sixteenth-century Roman art and patronage, with a particular interest in debates around images during the Catholic Reformation. I am also interested in the relationship between courtly culture and the climate of reform.

I have always had a broad interest in the history and evolution of the city of Rome from antiquity to the present day, and have edited a collection of essays exploring the relationship between the city and its past.

In my doctoral and postdoctoral work I focused on the personal symbolic devices known as 'imprese', which were popular through the sixteenth century and engendered an extensive theoretical literature. I was particular interested in the interaction between word and image in these devices, and the intersection of literary and intellectual cultural with the visual arts remains an area of research.

Research Centres and Institutes

• Medieval and Early Modern Worlds

Research clusters and groups

• co-convenor, Murray Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Art
• convenor, Rome Lecture Series

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

4

I welcome proposals on Italian art and architecture from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. I have particular interests in patronage, cultural and intellectual history and devotional art.

Current doctoral researchers

• ALICE CORREIA MORTON

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Sep 2019 onwards

• JOHN O'BRIEN

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor

  Title of thesis:

  Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology in the ceiling paintings of Andrea Pozzo.

Doctoral alumni

• SARAH MCBRYDE

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2017

  Title of thesis:

  Making a Visible Difference: Symbolism and Individuality in Representations of the Medici Court Dwarfs in Early Modern Florence

  Awarded:

  2022

• IOANNA GONIOTAKI

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor

  Awarded:

  2017

Teaching

I teach all aspects of Italian art from the fifteenth through to the seventeenth century, including painting, sculpture and architecture, and also occasionally teach on classical art. I generally contribute to 'team-taught' modules on the BA, including Materials and Processes, Art History: a Survey, Art and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and Debates in Art History. I also teach on the core courses of the MA History of Art and the MA Renaissance Studies.

I usually offer MA options on Religious art of the Catholic Reformation and the the City of Rome.

Teaching modules

• Dissertation MA History of Art (AHVM019D7)

Publications

Business and community

Media

I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

• Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
• Italian Baroque Art and Architecture

Outreach

I teach regularly at the Victoria and Albert Museum on their Year Courses.

I recently appeared in the BBC4 documentary on Michelangelo: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as part of their series Art on the BBC.