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To celebrate the publication of Professor Schmitter’s book The Art Collector in Early Modern Italy: Andrea Odoni and his Venetian Palace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), the College of the Humanities and Fine Arts organized an online discussion of the book. After Prof. Schmitter gave an overview of the study, Professors Patricia Fortini Brown (Princeton University) and David Young Kim (University of Pennsylvania) provided commentary.

The book is about the Venetian art collector Andrea Odoni who was depicted by Lorenzo Lotto in one the most famous portraits of the Italian Renaissance. Son of an immigrant and a member of the non-noble citizen class, Odoni understood how the power of art could make a name for himself and his family in his adopted homeland. Far from emulating Venetian patricians, however, he set himself apart through the works he collected and the way he displayed them. In the book, Schmitter imaginatively reconstructs Odoni's house—essentially a 'portrait' of Odoni through his surroundings and possessions. Schmitter's detailed analysis of Odoni's life and portrait reveals how sixteenth-century individuals drew on contemporary ideas about spirituality, history, and science to forge their own theories about the power of things and the agency of objects. She shows how Lotto's painting served as a meta-commentary on the practice of collecting and on the ability of material things to transform the self.

A recording of the event is available.