Brooke Wrubel

Brooke Wrubel is a first-year PhD student specializing in Early Christian, Byzantine, and Western Medieval Art, with a focus on Italy and its active participation within global networks of exchange. She has a particular interest in the material culture of medieval Venice. She seeks to investigate the ways in which materials and techniques used to craft objects can serve as evidence of cross-cultural interactions. 

Brooke holds a BA in Art History and Italian Studies from Bowdoin College (2021) and an MA in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania (2023). Her MA thesis “Intermediality in Duccio’s Maestà: Cosmati Work, Textiles, and Enamels” explores cross-medial dialogues between painted objects and their crafted referents. Her continued engagement with basse-taille enamelwork gave rise to a conference paper “St. Agnes’ Roundel: A Site of Sienese Material Translations and Transformations.” Brooke presented this research at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (2023), contributing to the ICMA-sponsored session Blurring the Sacred and the Secular in Late Medieval Visual Culture.