Camilla Marraccini is is a guest PhD candidate at the Institute for History.

More information about Camilla Marraccini

Overview

I am a PhD candidate in Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca.
My research focuses on early Christian sarcophagi, with particular attention to Roman workshops of the 3rd–4th centuries CE. Through the lens of visual culture, I examine both the continuities and points of rupture in the shift from Pagan to Christian systems of value, analyzing how established iconographic formulas were reworked in monumental artworks such as the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, the Junius Bassus, and the Adelphia Sarcophagus.
My approach integrates art history, archaeology, and theology, situating funerary imagery within broader cultural, historical, and philosophical traditions.
I am currently based at Leiden University, after a research period at Cornell University (Jan–July 2025). Alongside my dissertation, I collaborate on curatorial initiatives regarding contemporary art and support the preservation and promotion of Italy’s cultural heritage.
More broadly, I am interested in reception studies, the history of art historiography, and the intersections of myth, image, and cultural narratives.

Research

My research interests focus on the reception of Greco-Roman mythological culture both in the Early Christian visual culture and in subsequent and contemporary developments.
As part of my doctoral research, I investigate the development of distinctive forms of Christian iconography, whether unique occurrences, such as the "hapax oromenon" of the female “procession” depicted on the left side of the lid of the Adelphia sarcophagus, or reconfigurations shaped by the theological imperatives of post-Nicene Rome, as in the creation myth represented on the Dogmatic Sarcophagus.
My analysis is grounded in a close iconographic examination aimed at reconstructing the provenance and transmission of visual models within the workshop context. The research interrogates both the conscious alterations and manipulations of inherited images and the unconscious visual substrata embedded within them, considering how these layers function as sites of cultural negotiation, shaped by factors ranging from the patron’s intentions to broader historical and theological transformations.
The reception of the past (whether recent or remote!) is always a process of negotiation, both individual and collective. Acts of denial, replication, or the active and passive assimilation of values reveal dynamics that are as relevant to antiquity as they are to the present, making them a critical area of inquiry across temporal boundaries.

Curriculum vitae

2014-2018: BA in "Classical Literature", Università Statale di Milano, Milano (Italy).

2018-2021: MA in "Archaeology and Ancient Cultures", Alma Mater Studiorum, Bologna (Italy).

2021-2022: Research Scholarship at the Institut für Klassische Archäologie und Byzantinische Archäologie, Heidelberg (Germany).

2022-Currently: Phd Candidate at IMT Lucca.

Jan-July 2025: Visiting Period at Cornell University, Ithaca (NY, USA)

Sept 2025-Feb 2026: Visiting Period at Leiden University, Leiden (Netherlands).

Key publications

Marraccini, C. (2023). Archeologia e Best Seller: Bianchi Bandinelli, Ceram e l’Einaudi. In Paolo Soddu e Franca Varallo (a cura di) Editoria e Storici Dell’Arte Nell’Italia Del Secondo Dopoguerra. Viella : ppg. 427-450

Marraccini, C. (2023). Archeologi e case editrici: tra divulgazione, ideologia e metodologia. Italia e Germania a confronto. In Ocnus: ppg. 131-143