D'Emilio Art and Architecture Archive
Welcome to the D’Emilio Art and Architecture Archive! These images represent the first phase of a project to digitize, publish and preserve my collection of more than 25,000 photographs, mainly of medieval art and architecture in western Europe.
The earliest were taken in 1976; many were added during trips in Italy, England and Spain when I held a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship (1977-1978) and a Marshall Fellowship to study at the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London (1979-1982). In the 1980s and 1990s, I undertook systematic campaigns to photograph twelfth- and thirteenth-century Romanesque and early Gothic parish churches, cathedrals and monasteries in Galicia, León, Castile and other parts of northern Spain, as part of my research for my dissertation (on Romanesque architectural sculpture in the diocese of Lugo) and later publications.
Today, I am developing and publishing this photo archive with the support of the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, the USF Office of Undergraduate Research and the USF Library Special Collections. It will be the basis for online exhibitions produced with the help of students in USF Undergraduate Research CREATTE courses in the departments of Art and Art History, Humanities and Cultural Studies, and Religious Studies.
I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, the Marshall Scholarship, the Howard Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Graham Foundation, the Society of Architectural Historians, and - at the University of South Florida - the Office of Sponsored Research, the Humanities Institute and the College of Arts and Sciences, all of which helped to fund trips on which many of these photographs were taken. And, most of all, I remember and acknowledge priests, members of religious communities and countless persons, in villages and towns across western Europe, who made it possible for me to visit and photograph the most remote sites and the greatest cathedrals, often with splendid hospitality and memorable stories.
Browse, enjoy and make use of the archive!
-James D’Emilio
Associate Professor of Humanities
Picture Galleries
