Allie Terry-Fritsch

Professor, Art History

Ph.D., University of Chicago, Italian Renaissance Art History, 2005
MA, University of Chicago, Italian Renaissance Art History, 1998
BA, Duke University, Art History and Medieval & Renaissance Studies, 1996

Allie Terry-Fritsch's personal website

Teaching Specialization: Italian Renaissance Art History

Courses Taught
Dr. Terry-Fritsch teaches a range of courses across the undergraduate and graduate curriculum at BGSU, from the broad surveys that introduce the history of art at the 1000-level, to the “Methods & Theory” seminar offered at the 2000-level, to the geographically- and chronologically-defined surveys at the 3000-level (including “Medieval Art”, “Italian Renaissance Art”, “Northern Renaissance Art”, and “Baroque Art”), to thematic seminars in “Critical Issues in Early Modern Art” at the 4000/5000-level, and the theoretically-conceived advanced “Seminar in Art History” at the 6000-level. Regardless of course level, Dr. Terry-Fritsch’s expertise in the cultural history of medieval and Renaissance Europe and deep interest in art historiography and the critical traditions of art history provide students with the tools to meaningfully engage in the critical analysis of visual culture. Students explore the technical process by which art was created at different historical moments—and often are assigned to investigate a work of art within the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art through first-hand analysis or test out historical artistic techniques in class—while at the same time, consider the larger socio-economic conditions of the making and reception of art.

Offered at the advanced undergraduate level and graduate level, Dr. Terry-Fritsch’s seminars engage with contemporary scholarship and provide a platform for students to gain mastery of critical theory and current methodological strategies. Recent courses include:

* “Renaissance Art and the Senses”

* “Art, Ritual and Performance in Renaissance Florence”

* “Somaesthetics & the Renaissance”

* “Vision & Visuality”

* “The Medici as Patrons of Art”

* “Violence and Art in Medieval and Early Modern Culture”

* “Renaissance Painting Techniques”

* “The Toledo (Ohio) Renaissance”

* “Immersive Installation Art”

* “The Performative Viewer”

Areas of Research/Artistic Focus
Allie Terry-Fritsch is an expert on the art and culture of fifteenth-century Florence. Dr. Terry-Fritsch has published widely on topics ranging from Renaissance patronage and politics, art and violence, performative viewing and the sensory experience of art, and art theory and practice. She is co-editor of Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Ashgate, 2012; Routledge, 2016) and author of Somaesthetic Experience and the Viewer in Medicean Florence: Renaissance Art and Political Persuasion, 1459-1580 (Amsterdam University Press, 2020). Her next book, Fra Angelico’s Public: Renaissance Art, Medici Politics, and the Library of San Marco, has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, National Endowment of the Humanities, Pittsburgh Foundation, University of Chicago, BGSU, and others. 

View Dr. Terry-Fritsch's Book Launch for Somaesthetic Experience and the Viewer in Medicean Florence here
View Dr. Terry-Fritsch's Faculty Spotlight here

Students interested in applying the BGSU’s MA Program in Art History to study one of the areas of Dr. Terry-Fritsch’s research expertise should contact her at alterry@bgsu.edu

Recent Accomplishments
Dr. Terry-Fritsch is the recipient of the Elliott L. Blinn Award for Faculty-Undergraduate Research Work, awarded by the President and Provost of BGSU for collaborative research work with undergraduates. Several of Dr. Terry-Fritsch’s M.A. advisees in Art History—including most recently Grace Nelson (2019) and Viola Ratcliff (2017)— have been awarded the Distinguished Thesis Award from the Graduate College of BGSU.

Selected Publications
(2022) “Creative Placemaking in Downtown Toledo: The Rise, Fall, and Reclamation of Lamson’s Department Store.” In Visual Ecologies of Placemaking. Eds. Leslie Atzmon and Pamela A.V. Stewart. Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming 2022.

(2022) “Performing Virtual Holy Land Pilgrimage: Frozen Theater or Immersive Installation?” In Performing the Bible: Christian Drama and the Arts. Eds. Carla Bino and Corinna Ricasoli. Leiden: Brill Press (Studies in Religion and the Arts series), forthcoming 2022.

(2022) Terry-Fritsch, Allie. “Discovering a “Hidden Florence”: Digital Apps and Wayfinding in the Renaissance City.” Architectural Histories, Winter 2022 (forthcoming).

(2022) Terry-Fritsch, Allie. “Review: The Intolerant Middles Ages, ed. Eugene Selyansky.” Renaissance Quarterly, Winter 2022 (forthcoming).

(2020) Somaesthetic Experience and the Medici Viewer: Art and Political Persuasion in Renaissance Florence, 1459-1580 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020).

(2019) “Franciscan Art and Somaesthetic Devotion in the Italian Renaissance Holy Lands: Simming and the Production of Empathy at Varallo and San Vivaldo.” In The Senses and the Experience of God in Art in the Franciscan Tradition. Edited by Oleg Bychov and Xavier Seubert, OFM, 252-274. New York: Routledge, 2019.

(2018) "Embodied Temporality: Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’Medici, Donatello’s Judith, and the Performance of Gendered Authority in Palazzo Medici, Florence.” in Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World, ed. Merry Wiesner-Hanks (Amsterdam University Press, projected 2018).

(2018) “Animal Trials, Humiliation Rituals, and the Sensing of the Criminal Offender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” in Sensuous Suffering: Pain in the Early Modern Visual Arts of Europe and the Americas, eds. Heather Sexton Graham and Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank (Leiden: Brill Press, anticipated 2018).

(2017) “Review: Studies on Florence and the Italian Renaissance in Honour of F.W. Kent, eds. Peter Howard and Cecilia Hewlett (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016).” Renaissance Quarterly

(2015) “The Role of the Audience in Leigh-Ann Pahapill’s A Working Script in Shorthand.” Melbourne, Australia: Screenspace Gallery, 2015.

(2015) “Performing the Renaissance Body and Mind: Somaesthetic Style and Devotional Practice at the Sacro Monte di Varallo.” Open Arts Journal (Special Issue: “Touch Me, Touch Me Not Re-evaluating the Senses, Gender, and Performativity in Early Modernity,” eds. Erin E. Benay and Lisa M. Rafanelli), 2015, 111-132.

(2015) “Execution by Image: Visual Spectacularism and Iconoclasm in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” in Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300-1650, eds. John Decker and Mitzi Kirkland-Ives. Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT:Ashgate Press, 2015, 191-206.(2013) "Florentine Convent as Practiced Place: Cosimo de'Medici, Fra Angelico and the Public Library of San Marco." Merchants and Mendicants in the Medeival Mediterranean, eds. Taryn Chubb and Emily Kelley. Leiden: Brill Press, 2013.

(2013) "Networks of Urban Secrecy: Tamburi, Anonymous Denunciations and the Production of the Gaze in Early Modern Florence‚" in The Visual Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Italy, eds. Giancarlo Fiorenza, Timothy D. McCall and Sean Roberts. Truman State University Press, 2013, pp. 162-181.

(2012) "Florentine Convent as Practiced Place: Cosimo de'Medici, Fra Angelico and the Public Library of San Marco." Medieval Encounters 18 (2012): 230-271.

(2012) Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300-1350, ed. Christine Sciacca. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, November 2012. pp. 69-73, 74-75, 181-186, 198-201, 201-203

(2012) Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Edited by Allie Terry-Fritsch and Erin Felicia Labbie. Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.

(2012) "Proof in Pierced Flesh: Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas and the Beholders of Wounds in Early Modern Europe," in Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Edited by Allie Terry-Fritsch and Erin Felicia Labbie. Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. pp. 15-37.

(2012) "Beholding Violence: An Introduction." Co-authored with Erin Felicia Labbie in Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Edited by Allie Terry-Fritsch and Erin Felicia Labbie. Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. pp. 1-14.

(2012) "Review of Rebecca Zorach, The Passionate Triangle (Chicago, 2011)," The Sixteenth-Century Studies Journal: The Journal of Early Modern Studies, Vol. XLII, No. 4 (Winter 2012): 1247-1249.

(2010) "Criminals and Tourists: Prison History and Museum Politics at the Bargello in Florence." Art History 33, issue 5 (December 2010): 836-855.

(2010)  "Criminal Vision in Early Modern Florence: Fra Angelico's Altarpiece for Il Tempio and the Magdalenian Gaze." Renaissance Theories of Vision, eds. John Hendrix and Charles Carmen. Hampshire, U.K.: Asgate Press, December 2010, pp. 45-62.

(2010) "The Craft of Torture: Bronze Sculpture and the Punishment of Sexual Offence in Early Modern Italy." Sex Acts and Visual Culture in Early Modern Italy, ed. Allison Levy, Hampshire, U.K.: Ashgate, 2010, pp. 272-296.

(2010) "Point of Departure." Catalogue introduction for Point of Departure: Five Contemporary Realists, Schedel Arboretum & Gardens/ Hiram College, 2010.

(2009) "Donatello's Decapitations and the Rhetoric of Beheading in Renaissance Florence." Renaissance Studies 23: 5 (November 2009): 609-638.

(2009) "L'Arte della Tortura: Sculpture in Bronzo e Punizione dei Reati Sessuali." Sesso nel Rinascimento: pratica, perversione e punizione nell'Italia rinascimentale, ed. Allison Levy, Florence: Le Lettere, 2009, pp. 215-228.

(2009) "How to Approach the Medici in Florence," in ContextTravel Guide to Florence

(2007) "Meraviglia on Stage: Dionysian Visual Rhetoric and Cross- Cultural Communication at the Council of Florence" Journal of Religion and Theater,Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 2007): 38-53.

(2006) "The Craft of Torture: Bronze Sculpture and Public Punishment in Fifteenth- Century Italy" Constructions of Death, Mourning and Memory Woodcliff Lake, NJ: WAPACC Organization, 2006, pp. 73-75.

(2005) "Politics on the Cloister Walls: Fra Angelico and His Humanist Observers at San Marco." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2005.

(2004) "A Humanist Reading of Fra Angelico's Frescoes at San Marco," in Neoplatonic Aesthetics: Music, Literature and the Visual Arts, New York: Peter Lang, 2004, pp. 115-131.

(2001) "The Iconostasis, the Choir Screen and San Marco: the Veiling of Ritual Action and the Participation of the Viewer in Byzantium and Renaissance Florence." Chicago Art Journal 11 (2001): 14-32.

(1999) "The Transformation of the Antique: Metamorphic Representation in the Renaissance," in The Place of the Antique in Early Modern Europe, ed. Ingrid D. Rowland, Chicago: David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 13-27.

(1998) "Lorenzo Lotto: Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance" Chicago Art Journal 8 (1998): 76-80.

Works In Progress
(book manuscript) Fra Angelico’s Public: Renaissance Art, Medici Politics, and the Library of San Marco 

—
Faculty member at BGSU since 2005.