Posted by vrcvanderbilt on Wednesday, October 24, 2018 in Digital Humanities, Events, HART, Lectures, News, Vanderbilt University, VRC.

Stereotomy—the art of cutting stones into particular shapes for the construction of vaulted structures—has been practiced over a wide chronological and geographical span, from Hellenistic Greece to contemporary Texas. Yet the history of pre-modern stereotomy is little understood, and nineteenth-century theories about the art’s Syrian origins, its introduction into Europe by the crusaders, and the intrinsic Frenchness of medieval stereotomy are still largely accepted.

Sara Galletti, associate professor of art history, Duke University, will deliver a lecture entitled “Mapping Stereotomy: Vaulting in the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean” on Monday, October 29, at 4:10 pm in 344 Buttrick Hall (Center for the Digital Humanities).

Galletti questions these theories with the help of digital maps that consolidate evidence of stereotomic practice from the third century BCE through the eleventh century CE and across the Mediterranean region. “I argue that the history of stereotomy is far more complex than what historians have assumed so far and that, for the most part, it has yet to be written,” she said.

Galletti received a joint Ph.D. in the History of Architecture from the Sorbonne (Paris) and IUAV (Venice). Her field of research is early modern architectural theory and practice, with a focus on 16th- and 17th-century Europe and the Mediterranean. She has published on secular and religious architecture, Philibert de L’Orme, the urban history of Paris, the relations between space and social structures, as well as the history of stereotomy.

Her lecture is sponsored by the Department of History of Art, with additional support from the Center for Digital Humanities, Department of French and Italian, and the Digital Cultural Heritage Research Cluster.

*Stereotomic semi-dome in the Hammam al-Sarah Qasr Al-Hallabat, Jordan, 8th century CE