Stefania VENTRA

After the bachelor's degree in Cultural Heritage at the University of Milan, Stefania Ventra obtained a master's degree in Art History at the Sapienza University of Rome, where she also obtained a specialization in Historical-artistic heritage and the Art History Ph.d.

She is currently researcher in Museology and artistic criticism and restoration (L-ART / 04) at the Department of Humanities of the Ca 'Foscari University of Venice.

Between 2018 and 2021 she was post-doc researcher at the Archivio del Moderno of the Università della Svizzera Italiana (Mendrisio), working in the interdisciplinary project financed by the Swiss National Fund Milan and Ticino (1796- 1848). Shaping. the Spatiality of a European capital (of which she is currently an aggregate researcher), contributing with studies dedicated to the workers active in the construction sites between the Napoleonic age and the Restoration with particular attention to social history, material and technical culture.

Between 2017 and 2018 she was research fellow at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of Sapienza, where she conducted a study on Tommaso Minardi (1787-1871) curator of the Galleries and Inspector of Public Paintings. In the same years she was adjunct professor of Museology for the three-year degree course in Historical-Artistic Studies in the Department of History of Art and Entertainment of the Sapienza University of Rome, where between 2015 and 2017 she was involved in supplementary teaching.

Between 2015 and 2018 she took part in the research and editorial production activity of the Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura della Compagnia di San Paolo in Turin, as part of the project Ancient and Modern: Paris, Rome, Turin 1670-1750. The institution awarded her the "Unpublished Baroque Award" in 2018.

Between 2011 and 2015 she was part of the Progetto di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) Cultura del restauro e restauratori: modelli di ricezione per la museologia e la storia dell'arte antica e moderna. Un archivio informatizzato, carried out in collaboration with the Associazione Giovanni Secco Suardo.

She collaborated for a long time with the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, where she developed research on various themes and chronologies: from the history of the restoration of paintings, to which she dedicated a book (Restauri di dipinti nel Novecento: le posizioni dell’Accademia di San Luca 1931-1958, Roma, Sapienza Università Editrice 2014) and various essays in journals, including the study dedicated to Il San Luca di Raffaello: vicende e restauri tra Cinquecento e Novecento (in «Ricerche di storia dell’arte, 116/117, 2015); to the history of academic figurative culture in the Seventeenth century, to which she dedicated a monograph (L’Accademia di San Luca nella Roma del secondo Seicento: artisti, opere, strategie culturali, Firenze, Olshki 2019) and other essays in journals and collective volumes. At this institution she co-curated the exhibition I ritratti dei Santi Artisti: una regia di Carlo Maratti per l’Accademia di San Luca (2013-14) and the initiatives related to the celebration of the fifth centenary of the death of Raphael, with the exhibition Raffaello. L’Accademia di San Luca e il mito dell’Urbinate (2020-2021) and the international seminar Raffaello e le accademie d’arte: modello, funzione, ricezione (2021). She was also co-coordinator of the Progetto di studio, restauro e valorizzazione del Putto reggifestone, conducted in 2021 thanks to the funding of Mecenati della Galleria Borghese - Roman Heritage Onlus.

Her main field of interest, in addition to those linked to the Roman academic culture of the second half of the Seventeenth century, concern the history of restoration, museology and reception in the Nineteenth century, with particular attention to the work of Tommaso Minardi and to “his” restorers. She has dedicated several contributions to these issues in volumes, conference proceedings and specialized journals. 

She's member of CUNSTA (Consulta Universitaria Nazionale per la Storia dell'Arte), of the Editorial Board (section Middle Ages and Early Modern Period) of «Venezia Arti» and of the board of Associazione Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli.