Giulia ARCIDIACONO

Giulia Arcidiacono is a type-A researcher in Medieval Art History and teaches Byzantine and Medieval Art History at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Catania. She earned a Ph.D. in Storia dell’arte comparata, civiltà e culture dei paesi mediterranei from the University of Bari in 2012, with a dissertation on medieval painting in Sicilian rock-cut churches. She has taught History of Medieval Art, Christian and Medieval Iconography, and History of Architecture at the University of Catania, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salento (Lecce) within the PRIN 2017 project Navigating through Byzantine Italy: An online catalog for the study and promotion of a lost artistic heritage (P.I.: Prof. Antonio Iacobini, Sapienza Università di Roma). She also contributed to the Spanish research project Manuscritos bizantinos iluminados en España: obra, contexto y materialidad (MABILUS) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (P.I.: Prof. Manuel Antonio Castiñeiras). She is currently engaged in a research project on medieval rock churches and multiphase settlements in Sicily. In 2023, she obtained the Italian National Qualification for Associate Professor. Her research interests—as well as her participation in international conferences and collaborative projects—focus on Byzantine and Medieval art in Sicily and the broader Mediterranean, with particular attention to cultural exchange between East and West. She has published on pictorial decoration in Sicilian churches, rock painting, mosaics in Norman Sicily, Byzantine artifacts in museum collections, and manuscript illumination. Among her publications is the book Pittura medievale rupestre in Sicilia. Il territorio di Siracusa tra Oriente e Occidente (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 2020).