Elisa Galardi

Elisa Galardi is a PhD candidate in Byzantine Art. Her interest lies in middle and late Byzantine culture (ninth to fifteenth century), which she explores through the lenses of reception theory, intellectual history, and gender studies. Galardi’s PhD project, titled “The Relief Icon in Byzantium,” reconsiders the place of sculpture in medieval Orthodox Christianity, engaging primarily with questions of materiality, phenomenology, and scale.

Before joining Penn’s graduate program, Galardi earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Verona, and two MAs from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Courtauld Institute of Art. She has co-organized the IXème édition des Rencontres Byzantins (2016) in Paris, and the Delaware Valley Medieval Association Graduate Workshop at Penn, in 2020; she is a former student representative at Penn’s History of Art department (April 2020-April 2021). Besides her research, Galardi enjoys travelling, the outdoors, and language learning.

Galardi is currently the Zigrosser Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her research has been supported by the University of Pennsylvania, the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Koç University’s ANAMED Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, and the German Academic Exchange Service. She has published articles in major academic journals such as Cahiers Archéologiques: Fin de l'Antiquité et Moyen-Âge and the Journal of Art Historiography.