Dr. Margaret Franklin
Biography
Margaret Franklin, PhD, University of Cambridge (2000), teaches Renaissance and Baroque art. Her interests lie in cross-disciplinary scholarship that seeks to elucidate the influence of ancient Greek and Roman texts on the social and political culture of Renaissance Italy. She authored Boccaccio's Heroines: Power and Virtue in Renaissance Society, which focuses on famous women in the art and literature of Renaissance Italy, and has published numerous articles on cassone narratives and uomini famosi/donne illustri images.
Academic Interests
Courses Taught (titles are clickable to view sample syllabi, where available):
- Baroque Art in Italy
- High Renaissance and Mannerist Art
- Icons and Innovation in Late Gothic Italy
- Survey of Art History: Renaissance through Modern
- Early Renaissance
- Venetian Renaissance
Recent Publications
Book Chapter
“The Construction and Presentation of Heroes and Heroines,” in A Cultural History of Fame in the Renaissance, ed. Arnoud Vissar, vol. 3 of A Cultural History of Fame, gen. ed. P. David Marshall, 6 vols., Bloomsbury Academic, in press.
Articles
“Odysseus and Ino in Apollonio di Giovanni’s Early Renaissance Cassone Narratives,” Source, in print.
"Transforming Circe: Latin Influences on the Depiction of a Sorceress in Renaissance Cassone Narratives," Arts 12/3 (2023), doi:10.3390/arts12030105.
“Odysseus and the Cyclops: Constructing Fear in Renaissance Marriage Chest Paintings,” Humanities 7 (2018): 1-16.
“Silencing Female Reason in Boccaccio’s Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia,” Medieval Feminist Forum 52 (2016): 42-59.
“Imagining and Reimagining Gender: Boccaccio’s Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia and its Renaissance Visual Legacy,” in The Short Story and the Italian Pictorial Imagination from Boccaccio to Bandello and Beyond, ed. Patricia Emison, Humanities 5 (2016): 1-14.
“Virgil and the Femina Furens: Reading the Aeneid in Renaissance Cassone Paintings,” Vergilius 60 (2014): 127-44.
“Constructing Camilla as ‘Other’ in Renaissance Visual Narratives,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 39 (2013): 1-19.
“Boccaccio’s Amazons and Their Legacy in Renaissance Art: Confronting the Threat of Powerful Women,” Woman’s Art Journal 31 (2010): 13-20.
Current Research
Franklin’s current research interests include Homer's Nachleben in the culture and politics of Renaissance Society, with a focus on Renaissance painted narratives deriving from classical epic poetry. She is also editing a special edition volume, “Metamorphosis in the Arts,” for the online journal Arts.