Tim earned his undergraduate degree in Studio Art at DePauw University and his Masters of Fine Art in Painting at Indiana University. Having lived in Rome since 1998, he presently paints in his studio near Campo de' Fiori and teaches courses in drawing and art history at the American University of Rome. His work has been shown in group exhibitions at several Rome galleries, including Gallerie Benucci and the La Porta Blu Gallery.

Darius Arya is a Roman archaeologist (PhD UT Austin) who lives and resides in Rome, Italy. He is the co-founder and executive director of the American Institute for Roman Culture (www.romanculture.org), a 501c3 non profit organization which promotes and defends Rome's heritage through projects and unique teaching experiences for university-level students. He leads the archaeological projects, currently including the Villa delle Vignacce dig, and directs the Program in Archaeology and Roman civilization.

Christina Atkinson is a completing her dissertation at Columbia University, New York. Born in the U.S. to Italian parents, she seems to spend more time here in Rome than in New York.She specialized in nineteenth-century European visual culture and American art from the colonial era to 1945 before finally succumbing to the allure of eighteenth-century Italian art-- which simply gave her another excuse to come live in Rome.

Jason Atkinson is a composer and performer. He completed graduate degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the City University of New York. He has designed extensively for theater in the US and is currently working with a theater company here in Rome. At the moment, he's finishing an opera. For more info please visit: www.atkinsonmusic.com

Francesca Barberini is an art historian with a degree in modern and contemporary art from the University of Rome, "La Sapienza". She specializes in the art and culture of the Baroque period, a subject on which she has published several essays. She is a licensed guide and leads itineraries all over Rome, a city she truly loves. She has worked for many Roman museums, such as Galleria Doria Pamphili, Galleria Colonna, Galleria Spada, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini and the Corsini Gallery.

Paul Bennett is the Rome correspondent for Architectural Record and Architecture magazines and a freelancer for National Geographic. He has written several books on architecture and landscape for Princeton Architectural Press. He is keenly interested in the history of gardens and urbanism. With his wife, Lani Bevacqua, he started Context Rome in 2003. Paul holds a masters degree in intellectual history. His article on the subterranean spaces of Rome appeared in the July 2006 issue of National Geographic and his article about sailing a small boat across the Atlantica was selected for the 2006 Best American Travel Writing (Houghton Mifflin).

Meredith received a BA in art history from Rutgers University. After graduating, she worked for several years in the Education Department of the Frick Collection. She is currently completing a master’s degree at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. Although her focus is the Venetian Quattrocento, she is also interested in ancient art and spent a summer working at the American Excavations of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace.

A former art teacher, Hilary Bockham has spent the last ten years designing major European art exhibitions of both contemporary and historical art. She has been a visiting lecturer at several UK design colleges and designed costumes for international theater troops.

Originally from England, Richard Bowen has lived in Rome for the last fourteen years. He holds a Master's degree in medieval and twentieth century history from London University and, as this might suggest, has a broad-minded and synthetic approach to understanding Rome. Richard works quite frequently with institutional travel organizations, such as museums and church organizations, and as a result spends much of his time traveling all over Europe. He brings this cosmopolitan and pan-European experience to bear on his work with us in Rome, constantly making connections to other cities and countries in the course of his lectures and seminars.

John Boyden hails from Philadelphia where he studied Philosophy at La Salle University. He has a degree in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas and is currently studying Canon Law.

Liz Brewster is an American architect with degrees in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Rome specializing in restoration and urban design and has lived in Rome since 1988 working on design and research.

Vannella Carrelli Palombi has a master's degree in modern and contemporary art from the University of Rome, "La Sapienza". She has been leading itineraries of every period of Roman history for 20 years. She is a guide at the Vatican Museum and has worked in many of Roman museums, such as the Borghese Gallery, Castel S.Angelo, Galleria Colonna, Galleria Doria Pamphili. She has also worked in the didactic section of these museums and has a specialized teaching degree.

Roberto Cobianchi holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Warwick (UK) where he wrote his dissertation on 15th century Franciscan church planning in Bologna. He is currently a fellow at the British School at Rome where he continues his research and lecturing. Originally from Italy, Roberto has extensive knowledge and experience of Italian Renaissance art and has held several significant fellowships and lectureships.

Art historian Frank Dabell studied at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and is a former Fellow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; he lectures for the museum throughout Europe. After many years in New York, he has returned to Rome, where he was raised, and is now on the Art History Faculty of Temple University Rome.

Lucy (MA, Ph.D., Courtauld Institute of Art, London) is an art historian whose expertise lies in the art and culture of the Renaissance/ Baroque period. Her doctoral dissertation focused on Peter Paul Rubens and his role in bringing classical iconography to the North, specifically in relation to his depictions of the wine god Bacchus. Since completing her Ph.D., she has worked in the curatorial department of the National Gallery, London, and contributed to a major research project on the Roman artists' academy at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Lucy has received awards from the British Academy in London and the Dutch Institute in Florence, and is the author of several articles, most recently ‘Renaissance Inventions: Van Eyck’s workshop as a site of discovery and transformation’ for the Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek. Her current research focuses on artistic exchange between Italy and the North, and the impact of Netherlandish pictorial traditions in Italy from the Renaissance onwards. She is currently a fellow at the British School at Rome, where she is writing a book on the influential community of Dutch, German and Flemish artists in Rome, c. 1600.

Daniela del Balzo was born in Naples, but has lived in Rome for many years. She has a Master’s degree in Marketing from Cornell University. Daniela’s Italian Cooking School was established in New York in 1980 in cooperation with the CIGA International hotel chain, when she was called to organize Italian business lunches and dinners for American travel agents, fashion stylists, and managers of the hotel chain. She abandoned a successful 20-year career in marketing with Alitalia Airlines to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a chef. She continued her studies at the renowned Italian Cooking School “Gambero Rosso”, at the French Culinary Arts School “Le Cordon Bleu”, and at the International Cooking School of Naples. DANIELA’S Cooking School, is the brand name of her in-home catering and personal chef services. Being a chef has granted her the luxury of doing what she loves most: creating!

Gregory DiPippo, a native of Providence R.I., studied classics in high school and as an undergraduate at McGill University. He has completed coursework for a master's degree in theology at the Pontifical Institute for Patristic Studies, or "Augustinianum," in Rome and is currently waiting to take his comprehensives and defend his thesis on the church fathers. Gregory lead walks of the Vatican and other religious sites in Rome; but he is also a superb classicist and one of the few Context:Rome docents who can hold a conversation in Latin.

Olivia Ercoli is a native English speaker, a Rome licensed guide, as well as an art historian and main contributor to the award-winning Eyewitness Guide to Rome. She currently teaches a course on Roman Civilization at Lorenzo de Medici School at Rome, and has contributed to the National Geographic Lost Cities of the Ancient World. Olivia infuses her discussion of Rome with a sense of what it's like to grow up here and be Roman.

Sander is a lecturer in ancient and early Medieval history at the Augustinianum of the Pontifical University and at the J. Felice Rome Center of Loyola University of Chicago. He obtained his doctorate at Oxford University, working on the Church and cities of Roman Africa during late antiquity. Before finally settling in Rome in 2005, he worked at Utrecht University, in The Netherlands. Since 1997 Sander has spent considerable amounts of time in Rome for his research, which mainly concerns the city of Rome and its empire in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, but also Rome in the Republican period. Apart from occupying himself with ancient Roman bits and pieces, texts and stones, he also works as a delegate in Rome for the Dutch Bishops’ Conference. And if nobody knows his whereabouts, he can often be found on the organ loft inside one of Rome’s many churches, making an enormous amount of noise, or singing in a choir in St. Peter's.

Maureen Fant, a classicist turned food writer, is a frequent contributor to the New York Times travel section and other periodicals. Her books, described at www.maureenbfant.com , include “Trattorias of Rome, Florence, and Venice,” “Dictionary of Italian Cuisine” (with Howard M. Isaacs), and the classic source book on women in the ancient world “Women's Life in Greece and Rome” (with Mary R. Lefkowitz), the third edition of which has just been published. She is also author of a cookbook on Rome for a Williams-Sonoma series. She holds an M.A. in classical studies from the University of Michigan and completed the coursework and exams there for the Ph.D. in classical archaeology.

Francesca was born in Rome to an Italian father and British mother. She started as a classicist, worked in Architecture, and then studied graphic design and art direction before following her passion for food, and setting off for the Cordon Bleu School. After completing her courses, Francesca returned to Rome to start a catering company. In addition to catering for the past 8 years, she also teaches cooking classes. Passionate about fresh produce—which is fortunately always available in Rome—she only uses ingredients sourced from local providers according to the season.

Meredith received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and her Masters from Columbia University, both with a specialization in Medieval Italian architecture. She is currently working towards a Ph.D in Art History and Archaeology, with a project on the relationship between Romanesque architecture and liturgy in Verona. She has lived in New York for several years, where she has worked and lectured at one of her favorite museums: The Cloisters. Her long affair with the Italian Middle Ages has led her to live in Italy several times, though has the greatest affinity for Rome, as Roman art, and especially architecture, is her second love. Her knowledge of building techniques, as well as the history of Rome and the Christian church allows her to discuss how the Classical and Early Christian monuments of Rome looked in relationship to how they were used.

Numbered among the city’s contagious enthusiasts, Valentina is also a native Roman who trained as a classical archaeologist at the University of Rome, “La Sapienza”, before joining the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate Group of Art & Archaeology in the Mediterranean World. At present, she is conducting her doctoral research on the Capitolium, one of ancient Rome’s most sacred and civically significant hills, which today exhibits Michelangelo’s urban marvel. Valentina has written and published on a variety of topics spanning the ancient, early modern, and modern periods, including: papal designs to repurpose the Baths of Diocletian; Etruscan forgeries from the nineteenth-century; Italian legislation on the protection of cultural patrimony; and Mussolini’s imperial models for Fascist Rome. Valentina possesses years of experience engaging University of California students in the discovery of Italy’s multi-layered past in Florence, Rome, and Pompeii.

Elisabeth Fuhrmann-Schembri has multiple advanced degrees in archaeology and classical studies. She has done studies in classical philology, specifically Latin, and ancient art history. A frequent lecturer and adjunct faculty at John Cabot University, Elisabeth is currently researching Etruscan cultures. She wrote her dissertation on Etruscan musical instruments and is an active member of Gruppo Archeologico del Territorio Cerite, a conservation organization in northern Lazio.

Joan Geller was introduced to yoga in the early sixties. Her interest has continued over these 40 years. She has studied personally with BKS Iyengar both in Europe and India, was a student of Vanda Scaravelli until her death in 1992, and continues her studies including hatha yoga, Sanskrit, Vedic chanting and in the tradition of the great 20th century yogi, Krishnamaryacharya. Her practice in Rome includes small groups and private lessons with a particular interest in prenatal yoga.

Ann Giletti received her Ph.d. in intellectual history from the Warburg Institute at the University of London. Her dissertation topic, a study of 12th century scholasticism, lead her to Rome. When she's not spending her time in one of the centuries-old libraries in town, Ann works on several projects related to the city's topography.

Inge Hansen is a project director of the Butrint excavations in southern Albania. A native of Denmark, she has a Ph.d. in art history from the University of Edinburgh and has worked for many years with the British School in Rome on a variety of archeological projects. Her specialism is Classical Art, in particular the art of the Roman Empire and the imaging of women in the ancient world.

During her junior year at UC Santa Cruz, Heather left to do a three-month Italian language course in Siena. She has lived in Italy ever since. After finishing her studies in Italian history at the Universita' degli Studi di Padova, she became a certified sommelier through FISAR, one of the leading international wine organizations in Italy. In addition to her work with Context, Heather is currently teaching the Wines of Central Italy course for Lorenzo de Medici University. In her seven years here, she has traveled extensively in Italy and Europe, tasting wine along the way.

A native of Chicago, Jessica studied Fine Arts and Art History at Boston University. In 2004 she completed a three-year fashion design program at Accademia Koefia in Rome. The institute prides itself on instructing haute couture techniques and Jessica has found herself interning and freelance designing for numerous Italian designers. Jessica has been a two-time design participant in the runway show Concours Jeunes Créateurs Méditerrané in Nice, France. Her designs can be found in numerous boutiques in Rome, as well as her self-named boutique in Trastevere, which was recently featured in Elle magazine Italy.

A native of Washington, D.C., Lindsay Harris is currently working on her doctoral dissertation in the History of Modern Art and Architecture at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Her research focuses on ways in which photography has contributed to major transformations in architectural culture in Italy in the twentieth century. She has worked as a research assistant and docent at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, and the 52nd Venice Biennale. Since 2007 she has lived in Rome where, in addition to her dissertation research, Lindsay has been working on an exhibition of contemporary Italian photography. Her love for art and exploring new places has led her to travel extensively throughout Europe and East Africa, where her family has lived since 1997.

Ursula Hawlitschka has recently finished her Ph.D. in art history at Temple University, writing her dissertation on 20th century Italian artist Enzo Cucchi. Originally from Germany, Ursula has extensive experience as a curator of art and lecturer. She worked as a docent, giving on-site lectures, for Context Rome in its earlier incarnation as Scala Reale.

Elizabeth Helman Minchilli was born in St. Louis, Missouri and lived in Rome with her parents when she was twelve years old. She majored in Art History at Boston University; she obtained a masters degree at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts where she concentrated on Renaissance Gardens. This lead her to Florence, where she lived for two years while researching her doctoral dissertation on the sixteenth-century Boboli Gardens. She has lived full-time in Italy since 1987, dividing her time between Rome and Todi, in Umbria, with her family. She contributes to a wide range of magazines, writing about the joys of Italian life, including food, travel, art, architecture, design and shopping. Some of the publications she writes for include The International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Town & Country, Architectural Digest and House & Garden. She just finished her latest book, Villa on the Lakes.

Michael Herrman is a practicing architect with undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Cornell and Princeton Universities. Michael is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and the Rome Prize in Architecture. He has lived and worked in Japan and Europe during the past ten years, most recently in the office of Jean Nouvel in Paris where he worked extensively on the Museé du Quai Branly (opened in the summer of 2006). He currently divides his time between Paris and Rome.

Eric studied historical linguistics and ancient Indo-European languages -- Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin -- at Rice and the University of Pennsylvania. He then left the United States in order to spend his twenties traveling around Europe, seeing historical, beautiful and interesting places and things, and learning modern languages. After many years moving across Europe, he came to Rome in November 2004 to settle down. After a year learning Italian, exploring the city, and studying Latin with the great Vatican Latinist Reginald Foster, he enrolled in the Licenza (M.A.) program at the Augustinianum, a pontifical institute dedicated to the study of the writings of the Church Fathers. He is now unusually well-informed on theological controversies of the first six centuries and really ought to be working on his thesis as you read this.

Alvaro is an Italo-peruvian archaeologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh (1996). He learned archaeology in Peru and had a 15-year period of excavations in Peru and Bolivia before moving to the Old World. He has been an archaeology professor in India and Eritrea, and then a cultural manager in Kosovo and Bosnia. In Bosnia he has also conducted forensic excavations, as well as studies in provincial Roman villages and cemeteries. He resides in Rome where he continues working as a consultant in cultural management, focusing mainly in the "museum" potential of open spaces (parks and areas with architectural remains of Roman times).

Elizabeth Janus is an independent art critic and curator of contemporary art exhibitions. After spending several years in the Department of 20th-Century Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, she moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where she lived for 13 years. Since 1990 she has written essays and articles for major contemporary art magazines (Artforum, Flash Art, Frieze, Parkett) and for exhibition catalogues at European and American museums (Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf; Musee d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; Institute for Contemporary Art, London; Renaissance Society, Chicago). She is a regular contributor to Arforum magazine from Rome. She has organized exhibitions of Francesca Woodman; Tony Oursler; The Drawings of Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Kiki Smith and Sue Williams, Ketty LaRocca; Kristin Lucas, among others, both in Rome and Geneva. Most recently she contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue of the Egyptian artist Ghada Amer at the Museum of Contemporary Art Rome, or MACRO (Spring 2007).

Enthused by Italian history and culture, Adam first came to Italy as an exchange student in 2003 while studying for his BA degree in Modern History at the University of Oxford, St. John's College. Since the completion of his degree, Adam has specialized in the intellectual history of Renaissance art and philosophy, obtaining an MA degree from the Warburg Institute in London. He has also worked as an English teacher in Rome and presently works as a content editor.

Originally from New Mexico, Eowyn Kerr holds an MA in Art Conservation from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is specialized in the conservation and restoration of Renaissance Italian panel paintings, and her experience includes the treatment of works by Andrea del Sarto at the North Carolina Museum of Art, restoration of Baroque ceiling paintings in Rome, and teaching and lecturing on international conservation practices and ethics. She was recently awarded a Kress Fellowship to conserve Florentine cassoni (15th century wedding chests) for the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Her expertise in art history, artistic materials, and painting techniques allows her to discuss the creation of artwork within the Vatican Museums, Villa Borghese, and on our other art history walks.

Kevin is completing his master’s in the visual and literary culture of early modern Europe with a specialization in Roman Baroque art and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His current project deals with the various media documenting the transportation of the Vatican obelisk to its present location, an extraordinary engineering feat performed under Pope Sixtus V in the late 1500s. Kevin’s research interests have repeatedly brought him back to Rome to pursue such topics as papal censorship and Pasquino -- the talking statue -- as well as Bramante and Giuliano da Sangallo’s architectural designs for the New St. Peter’s Basilica. Prior to his graduate studies, Kevin directed The Shenker Institute of English in Florence. Kevin now joins Context Rome at the close of his very first exhibition entitled Curious and Commonplace: European Popular Prints of the 1800s, which was held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Elizabeth Lev has a degree in art history from the University of Chicago and is currently finishing her graduate work at the University of Bologna with a thesis on Baroque architecture. She is presently teaching Renaissance Art at John Cabot University, and Baroque Art & Architecture at the University of Duqusne, Rome Campus. Not only is she a licensed tour guide, but she is on the committee that licenses all tourist escorts.

Canadian born, Karen received a bachelor's degree in art history from the University of Toronto and an MA in the same field from Rutgers University. Throughout her academic career she has focused on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, with special emphasis on patronage and gender studies, as well as Bernini and sculpture in the late Seicento. Karen is currently researching and writing her Phd thesis, which combines her two main interests, namely the art and social history of 17th century Rome. When not buried under documents in Roman libraries and archives, Karen is most likely to be found running in the Villa Pamphili or scouring the city on the hunt for as-yet-unseen works of art and the next caffè.

Sara Magister has a master's in art history and a doctorate (PhD) in archaeology from the University of Rome. A native Roman, Sara has worked as the archaeological editor for the Italian national Encyclopedia. She also works as a consultant for the Vatican Museums and the former minister of culture, designing museum exhibitions and supporting the restoration of monuments with archive research. She is also currently working as a professor in an American University in Rome, teaching Baroque Art and Subjects and Symbols in Art. One of Sara's interests is the political use of ancient art during the Renaissance and Baroque and Pope Julius II's collection of ancient art, which forms the core of the Vatican's collection of ancient statuary.

Originally from Canada, Anthony Majanlahti has been living and researching in Rome for several years. His first book, "The Families Who Made Rome" (London: Chatto & Windus, 2005), has recently been translated into Italian, and he is currently working on a brief guide to Rome under the Nazi occupation. Anthony is an urban historian who specializes in Rome throughout its history, with an emphasis on the early modern and modern periods.

Cecilia Martini has a master's degree in Medieval and Renaissance art from the University of Rome, "La Sapienza." Although her specialty is painting and decorative arts, she has a broad knowledge of the history of Rome, and leads many antiquity-themed itineraries. Cecilia works actively as a curator of exhibitions and lecturer and is a frequent consultant with the Galleria Borghese, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, and the Galleria Colonna. She also has a specialized teaching degree, and works as a visiting professor in several art institutes.

Alexandra Massini is a native Roman who studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where she obtained her B.A. and M.A. degrees with double distinction. She has worked at Sotheby’s Auctioneers in Rome (Old master paintings and drawings) and the Thyssen Museum in Madrid. More recently she has written for Blue Guides and published her own guidebook to Rome. She has been invited as guest lecturer and study leader for various European and North American institutions such as the National Trust U.S., the Chrysler Museum of Art, and a number of international universities. Since 2005 she has been teaching for American study programs such as Rutgers and Vanderbilt Universities in Florence, CET in Siena, and Richmond University and CEA in Rome. Her fields of specialization include Roman Imperial Art, 14C art in Tuscany, Italian Renaissance Art, Michelangelo, the History of Sculpture, Baroque art in Rome. She is fluent in five languages including German and Italian (bilingual from birth), English, Spanish and French. In Rome, where she lives, she collaborates with the Colonna and Doria Pamphilj galleries and, as a licensed guide, conducts specialized visits for various cultural institutions.

Following a two-year stint at the British Museum, Susanne has returned for a post-doctoral fellowship to the Warburg Institute, where she also completed her PhD in art history in 2005. She specializes in 16th and 17th century art, focusing on the links between Italy and the North. Although based in London, she has spent every minute of her free time in Rome since meeting her partner, a Roman, in 2001.

Carlo Micio is a licensed guide for the city of Rome with a strong background in the city's political history. He oversees many of our activities. He also plays (drummer) in a number of Rome bands.

Emily is a Ph.D. candidate in archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MPhil from Cambridge, both in classical archaeology, and has spent summers working at excavations in Italy for the past ten years, most recently in Sicily and Sardinia. Emily is writing her dissertation on the Greek and Phoenician colonies of western Sicily—when not at a desk in one of Rome’s excellent libraries, Emily has on occasion been found napping in the Forum.

Sarah holds a Masters degree in Italian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and a PhD in History from the University of Sydney. She did her doctoral thesis on sport and gender in Fascist Italy. She has spent over four years living in Italy and has studied in Rome, Pisa, Bologna and Macerata. She has broad interests in history, contemporary Italian culture and politics, and art. Sarah is currently a fellow at the British School at Rome.

Linda Ann Nolan’s primary specialization is 16th and 17th century Italian sculpture and secondary specialization is classical Roman sculpture. Her research interests include the history of art restoration, the history of art collections, and early modern Italian prints and guidebooks. Linda received a B.A. in Fine Arts and Art history from Lake Forest College, and M.A. in Art History from the University of Southern California, where she is also completing a PhD. Linda participated in the American Academy in Rome’s summer archaeology program excavating in the Roman Forum, and prior to that excavated at Pompeii with the University of Rome. Linda held positions for several years in the Getty Research Institute’s Scholars Program and in the Museum Education Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has received fellowships and grants from the Borchard Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, and Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Linda is currently in residence in Rome conducting research for her PhD dissertation, "Tactile Reception of Sculpture in Early Modern Rome."

Anne Patsch hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she earned a BA in Art and Art History from Carlow University. Her interests include Renaissance and Baroque painting as well as Contemporary Italian art. During a semester studying at the American University of Rome she had her first glimpse of life in Italy. She has been splitting her time between Rome and the United States since and now leads walks for Context.

Tom Rankin came to Rome on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1991 after completing his architectural studies at Harvard. Tom was the founder of Scala Reale, an association of scholars leading small-group study walks that was acquired by Context in 2004. In 2002 he co-founded the American Institute for Roman Culture, for which he served as President, Board Member and Architecture Program Faculty until his resignation in 2008. Currently Tom is dedicating himself to the fields of cultural and environmental sustainability, architecture and design.

Sharon Salvadori is an art historian specializing in ancient Roman art. She is especially interested in the original socio-political and religious function and meaning of both public and private artworks. Her scholarly research currently focuses on religious imagery and the representation of gender in the funerary art of late antiquity. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University in 2002, specializing in both the Roman and medieval periods. Born of an Italian father and a U.S. mother she was raised in Rome and after completing her B.A. and her graduate coursework in the U.S. she returned to the city in 1995 where she has lived ever since. She currently teaches Roman, Late Antique and Early Christian Art and Architecture at John Cabot University and at the Loyola University Rome Center.

Patrizia Sfligiotti has a master's degree (specializzazione) in Medieval archaeology and has studied at the Vatican and at the University of Aix-en-Provence. She was an excavator at the Crypta Balbi in the 1990s, arguably the most significant archaeological excavation in central Rome in the last century. A dual citizen (USA and Italy), Patrizia is currently writing a guidebook about Rome and leading walks for us.

Annalisa Fugali Shield is a native of Rome, Italy, raised and educated in Chicago, Ill. She has a B.A. from the Univ. of Illinois with majors in both English and Italian Literature. She is also a graduate of the Univ. of Chicago having received her M.A. in Romance Languages and Literates with a specialty in Italian. She holds dual citizenship in the U.S.A. and Italy, and has traveled and lived in Italy extensively. Following her husband’s retirement in December of 2007, she convinced him to relocate back to her native Italy where they now reside in Rome on the Lungotevere.

Saskia Stevens is currently doing her doctoral research in Classical Archaeology at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the impact of urban growth on city boundaries in Roman Italy in the Late Republican and Early Imperial period. Rome, Ostia and Pompeii are the main case studies of this research. Saskia did a Masters in Classical Languages and Culture at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands with a strong emphasis on Roman domestic architecture. She wrote her Masters thesis on the Garden Houses at Ostia, a multi-storey apartment complex constructed during the reign of Hadrian. Apart from studies and indepth analyses of Roman architecture, she has also taken part in many excavations at Ostia and Pompeii.

Carol received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and holds M.A. degrees in Italian Literature from the University of Toronto, where she has taught, and in Art History from Boston University. Her academic career has concentrated in the Italian Renaissance, and her studies have spanned from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio to the Renaissance pastoral genre and decorative arts. She is currently pursuing post-graduate coursework in art history at Harvard University, and is examining the sacred and secular dimensions of the pastoral and its realizations in written and visual form. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies in Amherst, Mass, where she has given lectures and participated in conferences. Over the past three years she has also studied and worked in Florence, Italy, with the Lorenzo de’Medici School, participating in a variety of laboratory and fieldwork restoration projects throughout Tuscany. Through her affiliation with the Lorenzo de’Medici School’s Restoration Department Carol has treated numerous paintings, frescoes, and gilded objects, and has worked on-site at locations such as Villa il Farneto in Vicchio, and Santa Maria Castagnolo in Florence.

Giovanna Terzulli is an art historian and Rome native. She has a master's degree in art history from the University of Rome "La Sapienza," with a specialization in Modern and Medieval art. She works as an editorial consultant for a number of cultural organizations in Rome including the Superintendent of Archaeology of Rome. Giovanna is fluent in Italian (mother tongue), English, and French, and has a unique interest in Mannerism.

Dario is a native Roman and has lived in this city for most of his life. He obtained his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rome, writing his dissertation on Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno (whose statue you can see in the Campo de' Fiori). He currently divides his time between Rome and the UK where he is a professor in the Italian department of Durham University. When in Rome he enjoys leading Context itineraries focused on the Renaissance and Baroque periods. His favourite spot is San Pietro in Montorio (site of Bramante's "Il Tempietto") and the great views from the Janiculum Hill.

Andrea Viviani has a doctorate in linguistics from Roma Tre University in Rome. His dissertation deals with the relationship--historical and linguistics--between English and Italian. He conducts Italian Language Workshops for Context:Rome, and is equally able to give a lesson in how to speak/read Italian as he is able to lead a provocative discussion of language history and cultural meaning.