Naomi Pitamber

Assistant Professor, Visual and Performing Arts

Naomi Pitamber is an art and architectural historian of the Byzantine and Crusader periods. Her research in Mediterranean region has been supported by the Council for Library and Information Resources, the Council for American Overseas Research Centers, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Fulbright Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Getty Research Institute, and American Council for Learned Societies. Her first book, Byzantium and Landscapes of Loss: The Recreation of Constantinople in the Laskarid and Palaiologan Eras, will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2025. Her on-going co-directed digital humanities project, Salvaging Crete: Preserving the Legacy of the Artist Ioannis Pagomenos, assembled an interdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners from several fields to study and document the current architectural conditions of eight late Byzantine / early modern churches in Crete. Dr. Pitamber is currently at work developing a second book project which explores key buildings in the Mediterranean whose medieval phases have been erased or manipulated in service of nationalist cultural heritage projects.

Degrees

  • Ph.D. in Art History, University of California, 2015
  • M.A. in Art and Art History, University of Texas, 2005
  • B.A. in History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, 2000

Affiliated Department

Visual and Performing Arts

Scholarly and creative works

  • Presentations

    Culturally Definitive, Yet Divisive: The Architectural and Religious Heritage of al-Haram al-Sharif / Temple Mount in Jerusalem

    Using the Past for the Present: Medieval Narratives in Modern Political and Religious Discourse
    Rome, Italy
    March
    2025
    Sponsored by John Cabot University
    Naomi R. Pitamber
  • Papers Published – Conference Proceedings

    Panel Discussion: Site specific digital interventions: cultural heritage and community placemaking

    ISEA 2025
    Seoul, Korea
    Summer
    2025
    Minka T Stoyanova, Naomi R. Pitamber, John Garton, Marcus Brown, Kimberley Bianca
  • Presentations

    Cosmic Order and the Christian Conversion of the Medieval Pantheon

    Cult/Space/Presence of Images. A Workshop on the Art and Cultural Historical Impulses of Hans Belting
    Max Plank Institute, Rome, Italy
    March / Spring
    2024
    Sponsored by Max Plank Institute, Rome
    Naomi R. Pitamber
  • Chapters In Books

    Πἀντα ῥεῖ: Change in Thirteenth-Century Byzantine Architecture, Art, and Material Culture, Eds. Jenny Albani and Ioanna Christoforaki
    Chapter: Loss, Memory, and Exile: Innovation and Simulation in Laskarid Art and Architure

    Published by Brepols
    2023
    Naomi R. Pitamber
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    Provenance, Provenience, and the Medieval Basilica of San Marco, Venice

    Future/Anterior
    Naomi R. Pitamber

Awards and grants

  • Silent Pasts

    Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts (CASVA)

  • Silent Pasts

    Cornell Humanities Center

  • Silent Pasts

    Dumbarton Oaks / I Tatti

  • Silent Pasts

    Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ)

  • Silent Pasts

    National Humanities Center

  • Silent Pasts

    Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Cambridge, MA)

  • Silent Pasts

    The Rome Prize (Rome, Italy)

  • Silent Pasts

    Katz Center for the Advancement of Jewish Studies

  • A New Context for the so-called Melisende Psalter (British Library, Egerton 1139)

    The International Council for Medieval Art

    clock icon Jun. 25, 2026 – Jul. 11, 2026
  • A New Context for the So-Called Melisende Psalter (British Library, Egerton 1139)

    the Alice Coonley Higgins School for the Humanities (Clark University)

    clock icon Feb. 23, 2026 – Mar. 8, 2026
  • Image Subvention

    the Alice Coonley Higgins Institute for Arts and Humanities at Clark University

    clock icon Jan. 1, 2025 – Apr. 1, 2025
  • Millard Meiss Image Subvention

    College Art Association

    clock icon Mar. 1, 2025 – Mar. 31, 2025
  • Documenting Cultural Heritage in the Catenate of Italy through Digital Humanities and Augmented Reality

    Clark University

    clock icon Jun. 16, 2024 – Jul. 1, 2024
  • Replacing Byzantium: Laskarid Urban Environments and the Landscape of Loss (1204-1261)

    Getty Research Institute

    clock icon Oct. 17, 2022 – Jun. 30, 2024
  • Replacing Byzantium: Laskarid Urban Environments and the Landscape of Loss (1204-1261)

    ACLS

    clock icon Jul. 1, 2023 – Dec. 31, 2023