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From the Call for Papers:

Rome in the Nordic Countries: Images of Ancient and Modern Architecture, 17th–18th Century
Online and in-person, Rome, late November/early December 2025

This conference will draw attention to the artistic and architectural exchanges between Rome and the Nordic countries from the seventeenth to eighteenth century, focusing on the production, marketing, use, and conservation of images, including drawings and engravings, illustrated books, and suites of prints. These works found massive transnational circulation, and their adaptability made them indispensable tools in the history of the arts, and more generally in the broader European cultural expansion. The conference addresses the artistic-architectural relations between the Nordic countries (essentially Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, but with openness to the entire transalpine world), and the Italian peninsula. The pivot is ancient and modern Rome, the recognized crossroads of cultural elaboration and the centre of a massive and varied publishing production, through which the foundations were laid for the construction of a shared European artistic-architectural language based on Classicism.

Proposals should address issues of cross-cultural exchange, among which we suggest:

Travelling across Europe
• Travelling South, Renaissance to early 18th century: artists/architects, patrons, sketchbooks, diaries
• Travelling North: migration of Italian artists and architects

Books and Prints
• Producing and marketing images of architecture: Rome and the Nordic countries in the European context
• Using and collecting architectural prints
• Vitruvius and Palladio: architectural books in the North
• Architectural libraries

Rome in the North: Functions, Techniques, Styles
• Issues of style: Classicism, Baroque, post-Baroque and early classicism in the architecture of the Nordic countries
• Festive, funerary, and military architecture
• Urban planning and infrastructures: monuments and places
• Models and monuments

Nordic Rome
• The reception of Nordic architectural culture in early modern Italy

The conference will be in Rome, in person and hybrid. Travel expenses will be partially met. Participants will be expected to submit revised and expanded versions of their papers six months after the conference for publication as an edited volume. All proposals (max 1200 words) can be written in English, French, or Italian. Proposals should be sent to nordicromeconference@gmail.com by 31st January 2025.

Scientific Committee
• Antonello Alici, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona
• Mario Bevilacqua, Sapienza Università di Roma; Centro Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma
• Kristin Bliksrud Aavitsland, Universitetet i Oslo
• Kristoffer Neville, University of California, Riverside
• Sabrina Norlander Eliasson, Stockholms universitet; Istituto svedese di Studi classici a Roma
• Saverio Sturm, Università Roma Tre; Centro Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma
• Victor Plahte Tschudi, Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i Oslo