Timothy Christopher Verdon (born 24 April 1946), is a Roman Catholic priest and art historian, specialized in Christian sacred art on which he has written numerous books and articles. He has organized international scholarly conferences and curated exhibitions in Italy and the USA. He was born and raised in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States, and has lived in Italy for more than 50 years, now residing in Florence.
Verdon grew up in Weehawken, New Jersey, and attended St. Peter's Preparatory School as part of the class of 1964.
Contents
Professional activity
Verdon is a Canon of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence's Cathedral Church. He is Director of the Office of Sacred Art of the Archdiocese of Florence and of the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (Cathedral Museum), whose new installation he designed in 2012–15 with the architects Adolfo Natalini, Marco Magni, and Piero Guicciardini.
He is the director of Centre for Ecumenism, Archdiocese of Florence and Academic Director of the Ecumenical Center for Art and Spirituality, Mount Tabor, Barga.
Verdon is an author in Italian and English of more than 100 books and articles on Christian Sacred Art and has been an Official Advisor to the Vatican Commission for Church Cultural Heritage. He has also been a Fellow of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti)., and for 20 years has taught in the Florence Program of Stanford University.
From 2010 to 2015, he curated museum art exhibitions in Florence, Seoul, New York, Washington D.C., and Turin. He regularly contributes to the cultural page of L'Osservatore Romano.
Academic career
After a year in Venice (1964–65), Verdon studied in Art History at St. Peter's College, New Jersey, with Sabine Spiero Gova, a former Bauhaus member and lecturer at the Ecole du Louvre. Then, following a semester in Paris and a second year in Venice as a Fulbright grant holder, he obtained a Ph.D. at Yale University, writing his dissertation on Italian Renaissance sculptor Guido Mazzoni under the direction of Charles Seymour, Jr., former head of the Renaissance sculpture department of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
In 1976, Verdon entered a Benedictine priory, Mount Saviour Monastery, near Elmira, New York, later transferring to St. Anselm's Abbey, Washington, D.C., where he took courses in theology at the Catholic University of America. In 1980, with John Dally of Yale Divinity School, he organized a two-part conference for the 1500th anniversary of the birth of St. Benedict of Nursia, Monasticism and the Arts, promoted by the Yale Divinity School, the National Gallery of Art, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Catholic University.
Leaving monastic life, in 1985 Verdon, with John Henderson of Cambridge (later London University), organized a second two-part conference on religion and the arts, Christianity and the Renaissance, promoted by Florida State University together with the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa Tatti) and the Istituto di Studi sul Rinascimento, Florence.
After teaching art history for American University programs in Florence, Verdon was ordained as a priest there in 1994, and in 1995 was invited by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Francesco Marchisano, Secretary of the Vatican Commission for the Conservation of the Church's Artistic and Historical Heritage, to serve as Consultor to the commission. In the same period, he authored a Pastoral Note on art and faith for the Tuscan Bishops' Conference: La vita si è fatta visible. L'arte e la comunicazione della fede.
Several years later Verdon was asked by the lay editor Arnoldo Mondadori to write a book on sacred art in Italy, and by another lay editor, Electa, to write on Mary in art, Maria nell'arte europea, followed by a book on Christ, Cristo nell'arte europea. Italy's main Catholic publisher, Le Edizioni Paoline, commissioned him to organize and edit three volumes on Christian art in Italy, the second of which, on the Renaissance, is entirely by Verdon, and for the National Bishops' Conference he wrote three volumes commenting on the readings of the Catholic liturgical cycle through traditional and contemporary Christian art. La bellezza nella parola.
Books
The Art of Guido Mazzoni, Garland Press, New York 1978
Le chiese di Firenze, con A. Coppellotti e P. Fabbri, Arsenale, Venezia 1999
Arte, fede, storia. Guida alla Firenze cristiana, Firenze, Studio Editoriale Fiorentino, 1999
Il Duomo di Firenze e la sua Piazza, CD ROM interattivo, Arcidiocesi di Firenze e IMT Milano, 2000
Firenze scomparsa. La città delle torri e l'antico centro religioso. Testo per videocassetta. Firenze, Vallecchi Multimedia. 2001
L'Arte Sacra in Italia. L'immaginazione religiosa dal paleocristiano al postmoderno. Milano, A. Mondadori, 2001
Maria nell'arte fiorentina, Mandragora, Firenze 2002
Arte e catechesi. La valorizzazione dei beni culturali in senso cristiano, EDB, Bologna 2002
Vedere il mistero. Il genio artistico della liturgia cattolica, A. Mondadori, Milano, 2003
Maria nell'arte europea, Electa, Milano, 2004 (also published as Mary in Western Art, Pope John Paul II)
Firenze, Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Electa/Sole 24 Ore, Milano 2005
Cristo nell'arte europea, Electa, Milano 2005
Le Christ dans l'art européen, Citadelles & Mazenod, Paris 2008
La Basilica di San Pietro. I Papi e gli artisti. A. Mondadori, Milano 2005
Notable articles
Museums change lives, in T. Verdon, R. Filardi, eds., Museology and Values. Art and human Dignity in the 21st Century, Turnhout, Brepols 2019, pp. 23–31
"Urbs Beata. Riflessioni sulla città ideale rinascimentale", in M. Sladek, ed., Oestliches-Westliches: Studien zur vergleichenden Geistes- und Religiongeschichte, Heidelberg 1995, pp. 321–36
"Donatello and the Theatre: Stage Space and Projected Space in the San Lorenzo Pulpits", in Artibus et Historiae 14 (1986), pp. 29–55
"Bramante and Early Christian Spatial Articulation", in Arte lombarda 86/87 (1988)
"Potere e misericordia. Il Giona della volta sistina", in M. Caemerer, Kunst der Cinquecento in der Toscana, Munich 1992, pp. 43–56
"La teologia della Stanza della Segnatura", in Arte Cristiana 86 (1998), pp. 241–52 and 321-33
"The Spiritual World of Piero della Francesca", in J.M. Wood, ed. Cambridge Companion to Piero della Francesca, New York 2001
Masaccio's Trinity: Theologlical, Social and Civic meanings, in D. Cole Ahl, ed., Cambridge Companion to Masaccio, Cambridge University Press 2002
Michelangelo and the Body of christ. Religious Meaning in the Florence Pietà, in J. Wasserman, ed., Michelangelo's Florence Pietà, Princeton University Press 2002
"Pagans in the Church", in M. Hall, ed., Cambridge Companion to Raphael. Cambridge University Press 2005
"Il corpo, il volto, la persona di Gesù", in T. Verdon, ed., Gesù: il corpo, il volto nell'arte (catalogue of the exhibition at Venaria Reale, Turin), Milan 2010, 19-69
Books edited
Monasticism and the Arts, Syracuse University Press, New York 1984
Christianity and the Renaissance, Syracuse University Press, New York 1990
L'Arte e la Bibbia, Giuntina, Firenze 1991
Alla Riscoperta di Piazza del Duomo in Firenze, voll. 1–7, Centro Di, Firenze 1992-1998
L'Uomo in cielo. Il ciclo pittorico della cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore: teologia ed iconografia a confronto, n° speciale della rivista Vivens homo, Dehoniane, Bologna 1996; 3
Sotto il cielo della cupola: il coro di Santa Maria del Fiore dal rinascimento al 2000 Catalogo della mostra di Palazzo Vecchio, Electa, Milano 1996
Lo Spazio del Sacro: luoghi e spostamenti, n° speciale della rivista Vivens homo, Dehoniane, Bologna 1997
Pellegrinaggio, Monachesimo, Arte. La visibilità del cammino interiore, Firenze, Polistampa 2000
Atti dei convegni del Settimo Centenario di Santa Maria del Fiore, 3 voll. (5 tomi), Firenze, Edifir, 2000
Alla Riscoperta delle Chiese di Firenze, Voll. I-II-III -IV, Firenze, Centro Di, 2002 – 2005
Arte e catechesi. La valorizzazione dei beni culturali in senso cristiano, Dehoniane, Bologna 2002
Di fronte all'Altissimo. La cappella di Mario Botta e Giuliano Vangi ad Azzano di Seravezza. Electa, Milano 2005
Exhibitions
History and iconography of the Gates of Paradise Nelson Atkins Museum Of Art - Kansas City, MO. USA
Monastic Themes in Renaissance Art (A Walking Tour of Italian Painting and Sculpture in the National Gallery of Art), Washington, D.C. 1980
Il Nuovo Museo dell' Operal del Duomo
Michelangelo & Sebastiano (London: National Gallery, 15 March–25 June 2017). Accompanying book by Matthias Wivel
Visions of Faith (with Anthony F. Janson), The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida 1985
Sotto il cielo della cupola. Il coro di Santa Maria del Fiore dal Rinascimento al 2000, Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, 18 June – 21 September 1997
Gesù. Il corpo, il volto nell'arte. Turin, Reggia di Venaria Reale, 1 April-1 August 2010
The Beauty of Christianity, Seoul, National Palace Museum, 12 August – 12 November 2014
Picturing Mary. Woman, Mother, Idea, Washington, D.C., National Museum of Women in the Arts, 5 December 2014 – 12 April 2015
Sculpture in the Age of Donatello. Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral (with Daniel Zolli), February 20-June 14, 2015
Si fece carne. L'arte contemporanea e il sacro (with Federica Chezzi). Florence, Basilica di San Lorenzo, 9 October 2015 – 9 January 2016
Sculpture in the Age of Donatello 2015 New York City, Museum of Biblical Art