Professional profile
Art Historian | Early Christian, Byzantine and Medieval Art | History of art Historiography | Collections and Collectors | Art Forgery
He earned a PhD in Art History from Sapienza University of Rome and held research fellowships at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto (2016–2017), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2017–2018), Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC (2019), and the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations at Koç University, Istanbul (2019–2020). From 2020 to 2023, he was a Researcher at Sapienza University of Rome (SARAS Department).
His research focuses on the visual culture of the medieval Mediterranean, with particular attention to the relationship between art, religion, and society in Byzantium and to exchanges between East and West. His main interests include manuscript illumination, portable artworks and their mobility, and Byzantine sacred and secular iconography in its social contexts. He is currently preparing a monograph on the representation of pagan idols in Byzantium, “They Have Mouths but Do Not Speak: Representing Pagan Idols in Byzantine Art”.
In parallel, he works on the history of art historiography, collecting and forgery, Orientalism, and the reception of Byzantium in Italy and Europe between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has published widely on these topics, including the monograph “Riscoprire Bisanzio. Lo studio dell’arte bizantina a Roma e in Italia tra Ottocento e Novecento” (Rome: Viella, 2015), and curated the photographic exhibition “Picturing a Lost Empire: An Italian Lens on Byzantine Art in Anatolia, 1968–2000” (Istanbul: Koç, 2018).
CNR Disciplinary Fields and Research Management Sectors
- SH8_5 History of art and of architecture
- SH8_4 Museums, exhibitions, conservation and restoration
- SH8_2 Religious studies, ritual; symbolic representation
MUR Italian Scientific-Disciplinary Sector
- ARTE-01/A History of Medieval Art
- ARTE-01/D Museology and art criticism and restoration
Groups & Labs CNR ISPC
Mediterranean of Myths Research Group →
Publications
Highlight
Gasbarri, G. (2015). Riscoprire Bisanzio. Lo studio dell’arte bizantina a Roma e in Italia tra Ottocento e Novecento. Roma: Viella.
Gasbarri, G. (2022). “What Does an Idol Look Like? Visualizing Idolatry in Late Antique Jewish and Christian Art.” In Iconotropy and Cult Images from the Ancient to Modern World, edited by Jorge Tomás García and Sandra Sáenz-López Pérez, 99–117. Milton Park and New York: Routledge.
Gasbarri, G. (2025). “A Harmonious Conglomerate of Particles”: Abstraction, Visual Mediation, and the Reception of Byzantine Art in the Age of Modernism.” In A Byzantine Century: Political, Colonial, and National Uses of Neo-Byzantine Architecture, 1820s–1920s, edited by Adrien Palladino, 82–96. Turnhout: Brepols.
