Heather Hyde Minor is a professor of art and architectural history at the University of Notre Dame.  A specialist in the history of European art and architecture from 1600 to 1800, Prof. Minor's scholarly interests include the city of Rome, prints, and print culture. Her most recent book, Piranesi's Lost Words, was published by Pennsylvania State University Press in 2015. She is currently preparing an exhibition about Piranesi that will open at Princeton University in 2020 and just completed a new book, Piranesi Unbound, together with Carolyn Yerkes. 

Heather has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Her book, The Culture of Architecture in Enlightenment Rome (Penn State Press, 2010), won the 2010 Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History and the 2013 honorable mention for the Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians.  She is currently the academic director of Notre Dame's Rome Global Gateway.

Heather will present a lecture, titled, "What Piranesi Drew." Considered one of the first moderns, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) made many things during his lifetime from buildings to furniture, prints to teapots. He also drew.  More than 700 drawings by his hand survive.  Focusing on his scratch paper pile, this talk will illuminate what Piranesi drew on those sheets and what they can tell us about his working method and his subject.

This lecture was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Danielle Willkens, our new assistant professor of architectural history and theory.