Diana Norman joined the art history department at the Open University as a lecturer in 1977; she was appointed senior lecturer in 1995 and professor of art history in 2007. She has chaired and written for A353 Art in Fifteenth-Century Italy, A354 Art, Society and Religion in Siena, Florence and Padua 1280-1400 and A424 Display and Devotion: Religious Painting in Italy 1300-1500 and has contributed essays to AA315 Renaissance Art Reconsidered.
She has published two monographs on Sienese art, one focussing on late medieval art in Siena and its role in propagating a particular image of the city within its subject territories, the other dealing more broadly with the production and reception of Sienese painting in the late medieval and renaissance periods. She is also the editor of two volumes of collected essays on fourteenth-century art in Siena, Florence and Padua, to which she contributed a wide range of essays. She has written numerous articles on late medieval and renaissance Italian art, focusing in particular on the patronage of such art and the role of religion in determining its form and meaning. She is currently working on a research project that investigates the history of diplomatic relations between the city state of Siena and the Angevin rulers of southern Italy during the period 1300 to 1350, including the various ways in which these relations exercised a major impact on Sienese art.
Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena (1260-1555), (Yale University Press, 2003) Find out more about this book
Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late-Medieval City State, (Yale University Press, 1999) Find out more about this book
Editor and author of several essays in Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, Volume 1, Interpretative Essays, Volume 2, Case Studies, (Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 1995) Find out more about these books
Culture and Belief in Europe 1450-1600: An Anthology of Sources, co-edited,with D. Englander, R. O’Day and W. Owens, (Basil Blackwell in association with The Open University, 1990)
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'Santi cittadini: Vecchietta and the Civic Pantheon in Mid-Fifteenth-Century Siena', in Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, T.B. Smith and J. B. Steinhoff (eds), Farnham and Burlington VT, 2012, 115-40.
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‘Cardinal of Naples and Cardinal in Rome: The Patronage of Oliviero Carafa’, in The Possessions of a Cardinal: Politics, Piety, and Art, 1450-1700, eds M. Hollingsworth and C. M. Richardson, University Park, Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009, 77-91.
‘The Chapel of Saint Catherine in San Domenico: A Study of Cultural Relations between Renaissance Siena and Rome’ in Mario Ascheri, Gianni Mazzoni and Fabrizio Nevola (eds), L’ultimo secolo della Repubblica di Siena. Arti, cultura e società (Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Siena 28-30 Settembre 2003 e 16-18 Settembre 2004) Siena, Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 2008, 405-19.
‘Making Renaissance Altarpieces’, in K. Woods (ed.), Making Renaissance Art, (Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2007),175-208, 286-8
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‘Siena and its Renaissance’, in C. Richardson (ed.), Locating Renaissance Art, (Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2007), 134-172
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‘St Anthony Abbot in Sant’Agostino, Montalcino: An Augustinian Image in the Sienese contado’, in L. Bourdua and A. Dunlop (eds), Art and the Augustinian Order in Early Renaissance Italy, (Ashgate, 2007), 143-161
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‘When Charity Fails: Andrea Gallerani and Memory of the Misericordia in Siena’, in D. Stathakopoulos (ed.), The Kindness of Strangers: Charity in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean, (Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College, London, 2007), 91-118.
‘ “Sotto uno baldachino trionfale”: the ritual significance of the painted canopy in Simone Martini’s Maestà’, in P. Jackson and F. Nevola (eds), Beyond the Palio: Urbanism and Ritual in Renaissance Siena, (Blackwell, 2006), 11-24
'Politics and Piety: Locating Simone Martini's Saint Louis of Toulouse Altarpiece', Art History (33) 2010, 596-619.
‘Sanctity, Kingship and Succession: Art and Dynastic Politics in the Lower Church at Assisi’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 73, 2010, 297-334.
‘The Prince and the Bishop: A New Hypothesis for Tabernacle 35 in Siena’s Pinacoteca Nazionale’, Studies in Iconography, 30, 2009, 96-125.
‘A Case of Mistaken Identity: Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s “Saint Dorothy” Panel from the Convent Church of Santa Petronilla’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 70, 2007, 297-324
‘Sotto uno baldachino trionfale’: the ritual significance of the painted canopy in Simone Martini’s Maestà’, Renaissance Studies (special edition, Beyond the Palio: Urbanism and Ritual in Renaissance Siena, eds P. Jackson and F. Nevola), 20, 2006, 145-160
‘Sano di Pietro’s Assunta Polyptych for the Convent of Santa Petronilla’, Renaissance Studies, 19, 2005, 433-457
‘A Place of Pilgrimage: A Proposal for the Original Location of the Arca of Saint Cerbone’, Papers of the British School at Rome, 69, 2001, 191-221
‘An Abbess and a Painter: Emilia Pannocchieschi d’Elci and a Fresco from the Circle of Simone Martini’, Renaissance Studies, 14, 2000, 273-300
‘Pisa, Siena and the Maremma: A Neglected Aspect of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Paintings in the Sala dei Nove’, Renaissance Studies, 11, 1997, 310-42
‘The Case of the Beata Simona: Iconography, Hagiography and Misogyny in Three Paintings by Taddeo di Bartolo’, Art History, 18, 1995, 154-84
‘In the Beginning was the Word: An Altarpiece by Ambrogio Lorenzetti for the Augustinian Hermits of Massa Marittima’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 58, 1995, 478-503
See also Open Research Online for further details of Diana Norman’s research publications.
