Professional profile
Classical Archaeology | Iconography | Greek Vase-Painting | Visual Culture & Religion
Classical archaeologist with research interests in iconography and in the relationship between image, religion, and ritual practices in the Greek world. His work focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on the Archaic and Classical periods, with particular attention to Greek vase-painting, monumental visual programmes, and performative contexts connected with theatre and Dionysiac cults. Images are analysed as systems of visual communication embedded within specific historical and social frameworks, through an approach that integrates archaeology, philology, and the history of religions, with attention to processes of production, circulation, and reception.
A significant part of his research concerns hybrid figures and complex mythological themes, examined in their narrative and ritual dimensions rather than as simple decorative motifs. His interests extend to the ways in which religious imagery is constructed and to how images contribute to shaping civic identities, mythic memory, and forms of representing the sacred. Particular attention is devoted to the circulation of iconographic models between Greece, Anatolia, and the western Mediterranean, as well as to processes of local reinterpretation, especially in colonial and cross-cultural contexts.
Alongside academic research, he is involved in public outreach and in editorial and cultural projects. He has curated small thematic exhibitions devoted to the interpretation of ancient images and to the relationship between myth, ritual, and visual culture, with the aim of fostering dialogue between specialist research and a broad interdisciplinary audience.
CNR Disciplinary Fields and Research Management Sectors
- SH6_3 Archaeology of early literate societies and early civilizations
- SH6_12 Social, economic, religious and political history
- SH8_5 History of art and of architecture
Groups & Labs CNR ISPC
Mediterranean of Myths Research Group →
Palace, Polis, Urbs Research Group →
Publications
Highlight
F. Caruso (2020), Il tempio di Cassibile, in SIKELIKA HIERA. Approcci multidisciplinari allo studio del sacro nella Sicilia greca, a cura di L. Grasso, F. Caruso, R. Gigli Patanè, Catania, pp. 149-165 – ISBN 9788889375150.
F. Caruso (2023), Meden agan. Destra e sinistra nella gigantomachia del tesoro dei Sifni a Delfi, in Scritti per Mariarita Sgarlata, a cura di F. Bisconti, M. Braconi, L. De Maria, M.D. Lo Faro, L. Spera, Todi, pp. 103-117 – ISBN 9791259753137
F. Caruso (2025), La presa di Ecalia e i Gefirei, in Materiali su Eracle. Un supereroe mediterraneo, a cura di L. Alberti, V. Bellelli, G. Garbati (Mediteranea, Supplementi N.S. 6, 2024), pp. 31-58 – ISBN 978 88 8080 697 4
