Maria Vittoria Spissu holds a PhD degree in the History of Modern Art, obtained at the University of Bologna, where she presently is a Research Fellow and has previously been an Adjunct Professor. Also, she has been a scholarship holder at the University of Sassari and at the International Studies Institute, Florence. The main topic of her research has been the altarpieces painted in the Sardinian Kingdom under the Crown of Aragon and within the Habsburg Empire, with a special focus on the connections with the Flemish-Iberian painting and southern Raphaelism. In this context, she has investigated the circulation of prints and the specific adoption of imported foreign figurative ideas. She has published the monograph Il Maestro di Ozieri. Le inquietudini nordiche di un pittore nella Sardegna del Cinquecento and authored articles on retablo-related topics, such as: Un oltremare diffuso. Il navegar sardesco fra Mediterraneo di Ponente, echi dell’Impero e italianismi; or Il nemico oltremarino come alteritá integrata? Casi di ebrei e musulmani nei retabli di Sardegna (1492-1556). A new book concerning retablos, in course of publication, examines the connections between Spanish and Italian painting in early XVI century, and Flemish-Iberian and Gothic-Catalan painting on Mediterranean routes. Maria Vittoria Spissu is interested in iconography studies regarding the figures of lunatics, deviants and subversives. Her current research theme centers on the representation of the Infidel in Europe between the Reformation and Counter-Reformation (Turk, Jew, Moor, Muslim, Lutheran, Catholic), paying particular attention to the migration of attributes involved in the fabrication of the enemy, as well as to the recourse to and display of such aspects as irony, violence, the ancient and the exotic, in the rendering of the contact with the Others.
