Giulia ARCIDIACONO
Giulia Arcidiacono s a type-A researcher in Medieval Art History and teaches Byzantine and Medieval Art History at the Department 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 has 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 University of Rome).
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), and collaborated on the PRIN (2010–2011) project Arte e habitat rupestre in Cappadocia (Turchia) e nell’Italia centromeridionale. Roccia, architettura scavata, pittura: fra conoscenza, conservazione, valorizzazione (Scientific coordinator of the Salento Unit: Prof. Marina Falla Castelfranchi, University of Salento).
In 2025, she participated as a researcher in the project PNRR CHANGES – Cultural Heritage Active Innovation for Sustainable Society, Spoke 6 – History, Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage (CUP E63C22001960006, P. I. prof. Pietro Militello). From 2022 to 2024, she was engaged as a researcher in the project Innovazione digitale per la valorizzazione del patrimonio artistico rupestre in Sicilia (CUP E65F21002630007, D.M. n. 1062/2021, PON Ricerca e Innovazione 2014-2020).
She is currently participating in the project PARADIGMATA. Modelo, copia y patronazgo en las crónicas y evangeliarios iluminados bizantinos (P.I.: Prof. Manuel Antonio Castiñeiras Gonzales, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), and in the project VIRTUA()RT – Virtual Rooms for Arts* (P. I. Prof. Simona Scattina, University of Catania. Department of Humanities).
In 2023, she obtained the Italian National Qualification for Associate Professor.
She is a member of the editorial board of the journals ABside. Rivista di Storia dell’Arte (OJS UniCA, ISSN 2704-8837) and Siculorum Gymnasium. A Journal for the Humanities (ISSN 2499-667X). She is an ordinary member of the Associazione Italiana di Studi Bizantini.
Her research interests—as well as her participation in international conferences and 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).