Venice in Art and Music Is Theme of Yale Lecture Series

The city of Venice through the lens of its artists and composers is the theme of the fall term’s Franke Lecture Series at Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center. Cambridge professor Deborah Howard, an acclaimed scholar of the Renaissance, will deliver the first lecture in the series, “Music and Architecture in Renaissance Venice,” on Thursday, Sept. 15, at 5 p.m at the center (53 Wall St., New Haven).

The fall 2011 series explores the history of Venice as it has been burnished and sustained through the creations of its artists and musicians from the late Middle Ages to the present. The lectures are organized in conjunction with a Yale course taught by Yale art historian Robert Nelson and professor Ellen Rosand, director of the Yale Baroque Opera Project. Other scheduled speakers and topics in the series include Edward Muir of Northwestern University, “Venice, The Republic of Processions,” Sept. 29; David Rosand of Columbia University, “Painting Music in Renaissance Venice,” Oct. 13; and William Barcham from the Fashion Institute of Technology, “Public Life and Festivals in 18th-Century Venice,” Nov. 3.

All Franke Lectures are free and open to the public.

Howard, professor of architectural history at the University of Cambridge, is an internationally recognized authority on the art and architecture of Venice and the Veneto, music and architecture in the Renaissance, and the relationship between Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean. Among the many books she has written or co-authored are “The Architectural History of Venice,” “Venice and the East,” and (with Laura Moretti) “Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice.” Her book “Talking Buildings” is forthcoming from Yale University Press.

The Franke Lectures are made possible by the generosity of Richard and Barbara Franke, and are intended to present important topics in the humanities to a wide and general audience.