Bio

Emanuele Lugli is an art historian who specializes in late medieval and early modern Italian painting, urban culture, trade, and fashion. His theoretical concerns include questions of scale and labor, the history of technology, and the reach of intellectual networks.

An expert in the history of measurements, Emanuele has written a trilogy on the topic. The first book, Unità di Misura: Breve Storia del Metro in Italia (Il Mulino, 2014), reconstructs the revolution triggered by the introduction of the metric system in nineteenth-century Italy. The second, The Making of Measure and the Promise of Sameness (University of Chicago Press, 2019), searches for the foundations of objectivity through an examination of how measurement standards were created, displayed, and envisioned by medieval communities. The third, Measuring in the Renaissance: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2023), highlights measurement as a pervasive creative activity, which erases information as much as it generates it.

Emanuele has also written a study on hair and the bodily minuscule in shaping concepts of beauty and desire in Renaissance Florence, titled Knots of the Violence of Desire in Renaissance Florence (University of Chicago Press, 2023). He co-edited a collection of essays on the role of size in art making, titled To Scale, with Professor Joan J. Kee of the University of Michigan (Hoboken, Wiley-Blackwell: 2015). Currently, he is working on books about the idea of "love at first sight" and Italian painter Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614).

In addition to his academic research projects, Emanuele regularly writes for magazines and newspapers such as The Guardian, Slate, Il Sole 24 Ore, Domani, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.

Academic Appointments

  • Assistant Professor, Art & Art History

Contact

  • Academic
    elugli@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty Department: Art & Art History Position: Assistant Professor

Additional Info

2023-24 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • Lavinia Fontana's Freedom ART HISTORY Lugli, E. 2023

    View details for DOI 10.1111/1467-8365.12715

    View details for Web of Science ID 000975501500001

  • Knots, or the violence of desire in Renaissance Florence Lugli, E. 2023
  • Learning Through Images in the Italian Renaissance: Illustrated Manuscripts and Education in Quattrocento (Book Review) MANUSCRIPT STUDIES-A JOURNAL OF THE SCHOENBERG INSTITUTE FOR MANUSCRIPT STUDIES Book Review Authored by: Lugli, E. 2021; 6 (2): 378-380

    View details for Web of Science ID 000728575300012

  • Fashion’s Measure: Preaching, Chronicle-Writing, and the New Look of the 1340s Fashion Theory Lugli, E. 2021; 25 (2)

    View details for DOI 10.1080/1362704X.2019.1627758

  • Decolonizing Art History ART HISTORY Grant, C., Price, D., Bailey, D. A., Barringer, T., Basu, P., Beckwith, N., Bindman, D., Burke, J., Corey, P. N., D'Emilio, J., Elkins, J., Elsner, J., Hylton, R., Jain, K., Jumabhoy, Z., Kassim, S., Layiwola, D., Lok, S., Lugli, E., Meskimmon, M., Mukherji, P., Nelson, J., Onians, J., Pinder, K., Pollock, G., Shabout, N., Yong, S., Tang, J., Turker, D., Vellodi, K., Ventrella, F., Watanabe, T. 2020; 43 (1): 8–66

    View details for DOI 10.1111/1467-8365.12490

    View details for Web of Science ID 000509322300001

  • The Ribbon Files: The Medici Project to Chart the Measurements of the Entire World I TATTI STUDIES Lugli, E. 2019; 22 (1): 143–81

    View details for DOI 10.1086/702665

    View details for Web of Science ID 000476573000008

  • The making of measure and the promise of sameness Lugli, E. 2019
  • THE HAIR IS FULL OF SNARES BOTTICELLI'S AND BOCCACCIO'S WAYWARD EROTIC GAZE MITTEILUNGEN DES KUNSTHISTORISCHEN INSTITUTES IN FLORENZ Lugli, E. 2019; 61 (2): 203-234

    View details for Web of Science ID 000512215200003

  • Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form (Book Review) SCULPTURE JOURNAL Book Review Authored by: Lugli, E. 2018; 27 (2): 282-283

    View details for Web of Science ID 000456139900011

  • Metamorphic Heads: A Footnote on Botticelli's and Pollaiuolo's Mercanzia Virtues SOURCE-NOTES IN THE HISTORY OF ART Lugli, E. 2017; 37 (1): 26-36

    View details for DOI 10.1086/695755

    View details for Web of Science ID 000418197200005

  • Watery Manes. Reversing the Stream of Thought about Quattrocento Italian Heads Internet Archaeology Lugli, E. 2016; 42

    View details for DOI 10.11141/ia.42.6.11

  • Measuring the Bones: On Francesco di Giorgio Martini's Saluzzianus Skeleton ART HISTORY Lugli, E. 2015; 38 (2): 346-363

    View details for DOI 10.1111/1467-8365.12153

    View details for Web of Science ID 000351682900006

  • Scale to Size: An Introduction ART HISTORY Kee, J., Lugli, E. 2015; 38 (2): 250-266

    View details for DOI 10.1111/1467-8365.12148

    View details for Web of Science ID 000351682900001

  • Unità di misura: Breve storia del metro in Italia Lugli, E. Il Mulino. 2014
  • City and Cosmos: The Medieval World in Urban Form. (Book Review) IMAGO MUNDI-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY Book Review Authored by: Lugli, E. 2010; 62 (2): 251

    View details for Web of Science ID 000279210400010

  • Hidden in Plain Sight: The Pietre di Paragone and the Preeminence of Medieval Measurements in Communal Italy GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART Lugli, E. 2010; 49 (2): 77-95

    View details for DOI 10.2307/41550540

    View details for Web of Science ID 000208377500001

  • BETWEEN FORM AND REPRESENTATION: THE FRICK ST FRANCIS ART HISTORY Lugli, E. 2009; 32 (1): 21-+

    View details for DOI 10.1111/j.1467-8365.2008.00647.x

    View details for Web of Science ID 000263518600002

  • Connoisseurship as a system: Reflections on Federico Zeri's 'Due dipinti, la filologia a un nome' WORD & IMAGE Lugli, E. 2008; 24 (2): 162-175

    View details for DOI 10.1080/02666280701497876

    View details for Web of Science ID 000257389000005

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0517-9735