4 May – 8 June, every Monday at 5pm at the Lecture theatre, Faculty of Classics, Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies, 66, St. Giles’, Oxford, OX1 3LU
ICI London supports the Classical Archaeology Seminar
Trinity Term 2026
APRI: Archaeology of Preroman Italy
In continuity with the Sybille Haynes Etruscan Lecture, traditionally held on the first Monday of Trinity Term (27 April), this seminar series explores recent research on pre-Roman Italy, broadly defined to encompass various populations and regions of the Italian peninsula, including Magna Graecia. It highlights new excavations, fresh insights into material culture, and studies on the interactions between Greeks and local communities.
Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies (66 St Giles’), Lecture Room,
Mondays 5.00 p.m. Drinks afterwards
No need to book, just come along!
Week 2
Monday May 4th
Colouring the Afterlife: Ritual and Identity in Pre-Roman Apulia, between Wall Painting and Ceramic
Giuseppina Gadaleta (Università degli Studi di Bari, Institute of Classical Studies, London)
Week 3
Monday May 11th
One Site, Many Lives: Archaeology in the Urban Area of Metapontion
Fabio Donnici (Università degli Studi della Basilicata)
Week 4
Monday May 18th
From Sheep to Ships. Archaeological News from Southern Latium between Pre-Roman and Roman Times
Massimiliano di Fazio (Università degli Studi di Pavia)
Week 5
Monday May 25th
Towards an Archaeology of Cult in the Main Urban Sanctuary of Selinunte
Clemente Marconi (Università degli Studi di Milano- Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)
Week 6
Monday Jun. 1st
Moving Images, Moving Artisans: From Athens to Falerii. Demand, Production, and Uses of Figured Pottery in the Ager Faliscus.
Book presentation: A. Pola, La più antica produzione ceramica falisca a figure rosse, Istituto di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, G. Bretschneider, Rome
2024
A. Pola (University of Oxford)
Week 7
Monday Jun. 8th
Pompei before Pompei
Massimo Osanna (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il
Turismo / Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”)
Organisers: Angela Pola, Christina Monroe, Isabella Jäger
with the support of the Faculty of Classics and the Italian Cultural Institute, London
Speakers bios
Massimiliano Di Fazio is Associate Professor of Archaeology of pre-Roman Italy and Etruscology at the University of Pavia. He holds a doctoral degree in Ancient History from the Università ‘Sapienza’ di Roma and a second doctoral degree in Mediterranean Archaeology at the Università degli Studi di Pavia. He is Fellow of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi and Italici and has held fellowships in various international Universities and Institutions (The University of Newcastle, Fondation Hardt Geneve, Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut Berlin, Royal Dutch Institute in Rome). His main focus of research is on the cultures of pre-Roman Italy, especially in Central Italy. Main research interests include the political, religious, and economic history of Ancient Italy, as shown by several monographs and papers in relevant journals. He is leading research projects and excavations in Southern Latium. He has extensively published on the history and archaeology of pre-Roman populations, with a specific focus on the ancient Lazio region, and three main monographs: on the Volsci population, on the archaeology of Southern Latium (territory of Fondi), and on the pre-Roman deity Feronia.
Fabio Donnici graduated in Archaeology from the University of Perugia, specialized in Archaeological Heritage at the University of Florence, and obtained his PhD at the University of Basilicata, where he served as Assistant Professor from 2019 to 2024. He led the European research project DiABasi (Discovering Ancient Cities in Basilicata) and held a Research Fellowship as part of the European project Tech4You – Technologies for Climate Change Adaptation and Quality of Life Improvement. Since 2014, he has directed archaeological fieldwork in Southern Italy, including projects in Anzi, Baragiano, Ferrandina, and Metaponto. He is a member of the scientific board of the series Polieion (Basilicata University Press) and of the Class A journal Siris (Quasar), as well as of the scientific committees of the Civic Archaeological Museum of Ferrandina and the ArcheoParco del Basileus (Baragiano). He has also collaborated with the Italian Archaeological School at Athens since 2016, focusing on the study of ceramics from the Sanctuary of the Kabeiroi at Lemnos, and he is involved in an Italian–Greek project on archaeological artefacts illicitly held by Robin Symes Ltd, now housed at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. He has published extensively on the archaeology of Magna Graecia, including monographs, edited volumes, and articles, with a focus on pre-Roman Lucania, the interactions between Greeks and indigenous populations, as well as pottery production, mosaics, and the history of collecting in Southern Italy (18th–20th century).
Giuseppina Gadaleta is Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Bari “Aldo Moro,” where she has been teaching since 2006. She received her PhD in Archaeology of Magna Graecia from the University of Naples Federico II and a Specialisation in Classical Archaeology from the University of Bari. Her research focuses on the archaeology and visual culture of ancient Southern Italy and the wider Mediterranean, with particular emphasis on Apulian red-figure pottery, funerary painting, and the relationship between images, contexts, and cultural practices. She has worked extensively on the classification, interpretation, and enhancement of archaeological materials—especially ceramics—combining traditional approaches with new methodological frameworks on documentation, communication, and the reception of ancient imagery. Her research also explores the replication and circulation of visual models, and more broadly, the role of material culture in processes of intercultural exchange in the ancient Mediterranean. She has participated in numerous national and international research projects and interdisciplinary initiatives devoted to communicating and disseminating cultural heritage. She is currently involved in collaborative research with Italian and international institutions on various topics, including ceramic production and circulation, the study of archaeological contexts, and the relationship between archaeology and other research fields, including food culture. She is the author of numerous scholarly publications, including monographs, peer-reviewed articles, and contributions to edited volumes and conference proceedings. Notable works include a volume on the Tomb of the Dancers of Ruvo di Puglia and two volumes of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum from the Jatta National Museum in Ruvo.
Angela Pola is Departmental Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford and a Research Associate at the Classical Art Research Centre (Beazley Archive). She holds degrees from the University of Pavia, a postgraduate diploma from the University of Milan, and a PhD from Sapienza University of Rome. She has previously held academic positions at the University of Pavia and Sapienza University of Rome and has conducted research fellowships at several international institutions, including the Getty Center, the Institute of Classical Studies (ICS) in London, the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens, and the École française d’Athènes. She is a member of the Falerii Project (Sapienza University of Rome) and the Tarquinia Project (University of Milan) and has been involved with the J. Paul Getty Museum in cataloging their Etruscan and Italic collections. From 2022 to 2024, she was the Principal Investigator for the interdisciplinary project “Imago-ORA,. Beyond Images in Context ” funded by the Italian Ministry of Research with European funds. An archaeologist specialising in Classical Archaeology, Etruscology, and Italic studies, her research focuses on ceramic production in Attic, Etrusco-Italic, and Faliscan contexts, processes of cultural interaction in pre-Roman Italy, and chemical analysis applied to figurative ceramics, topics on which she has published extensively. Her monograph on Faliscan red-figure pottery, published in the “Monumenti Etruschi” series of the Istituto di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, received the Prix Roger Lambrechts from the Académie Royale de Belgique.
Clemente Marconi is the James R. McCredie Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, and Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Università degli Studi di Milano. He is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute, a member of the Academia Europaea, and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Ancient Architecture. He directs the excavations at the acropolis of Selinunte. After earning his PhD in Classical Art and Archaeology from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in 1997 under the guidance of Salvatore Settis, he taught at Columbia University (1999–2006), held the Elizabeth A. Whitehead Professorship at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (2010–2011) and a visiting Professorship at the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (2019). His research focuses on ancient Mediterranean art and archaeology, with an emphasis on Greek settlement in the western Mediterranean and the archaeology of Sicily. In these fields, he curated major exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art (2013, “Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome”) and at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples (2023, “Picasso and Antiquity”). He has published extensively, including key monographs such as The Metopes of the Heraion of Selinunte, Greek Painted Pottery: Images, Contexts, and Controversies, and curated The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture.
Massimo Osanna is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Università degli Studi di Napoli, “Federico II” and Director General of Museums at the Italian Ministry of Culture. He served as Superintendent for the Archaeological Heritage of Basilicata and Superintendent for the Archaeological Sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and directed the Pompeii Archaeological Park. Since 2023, he is Director General for The Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo National Museums in Rome. He taught at the University of Basilicata, directed the School of Specialization in Archaeological Heritage in Matera, taught as a visiting professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris and the University of Heidelberg and conducted research at the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg and at the Italian Archaeological School of Athens. He led extensive field research projects (Torre di Satriano, Ascoli Satriano, Pantelleria, Taureana di Palmi, Gabii, Alesa) and he is currently involved in a joint research in the island of Rheneia in collaboration with the Ephoria of the Cyclades and the École française d’Athènes. During his tenure at Pompeii, he coordinated the Grande Progetto Pompei for the safeguarding of the entire city and the restoration of major buildings, promoting extensive research in the city’s sanctuaries and public spaces, including new excavations in Regio V. He is the author of over a hundred essays and monographs on the archaeology of ancient Greece and Italy, the study of ancient rituals, the reconstruction of settlement patterns, mobility phenomena, cultural contacts, and cultural heritage management and conservation.