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Steve ScarpaAugust 26, 20212min
Associate Professor of Art History Nadja Aksamija got her first glimpse of Bologna, Italy back in 2004 as she walked from the train station towards the historic city center. It was a hot day and she dragged her suitcase down the sidewalk.  Crossing Piazza Maggiore, Aksamija stepped into the shade of Palazzo dei Banchi, experiencing for the first time the city’s breathtaking porticos – extensions from the upper levels of structures that create about 37 miles of covered walkways alongside city streets.  “I remember thinking that this was incredible,” Aksamija said. “It felt like a changing landscape.” While the porticos…

Olivia DrakeOctober 22, 20122min
Nadja Aksamija, associate professor of art history, is spending her 2012-13 year abroad in Florence, Italy as a Robert Lehman Fellow at the Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. She is one of 15 scholars to receive the fellowship. I Tatti Fellows are selected by an international and interdisciplinary committee that welcomes applications from Italian Renaissance scholars from all nations. While abroad, Aksamija is researching the Bolognese villa in the age of Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti. "My project investigates the Bolognese villa culture at the end of the 16th century, a period marked by Catholic reform…

David LowFebruary 13, 20122min
Nadja Aksamija, assistant professor of art history, is the co-author of the book, La Sala Bologna nei Palazzi Vaticani: Architettura, cartografia e potere nell’età di Gregorio XIIIpublished by Marsilio Editori, 2011. The Sala Bologna is one of the most inaccessible and fascinating spaces in the Vatican Palace, located between the Pope’s private apartments and the Secretariat of the Vatican State. Originally used for ceremonial purposes, it was built and decorated for the Jubilee of 1575 for the Bolognese pope Gregory XIII, Ugo Boncompagni, and precedes by five years the more famous Gallery of Maps in the Vatican Belvedere. It was conceived…