Dr.ⁱⁿ habil. Romana Sammern

Romana Sammern is an art historian and a permanent research scholar at the Inter-University Organization Arts & Knowledges at the University of Salzburg/Mozarteum University. She researches and teaches at the intersection of the body, image, and medicine in the early modern period and their resonances in the present. She holds a PhD in art history from Humboldt University of Berlin. In 2024, she completed her habilitation in art history and visual studies at the University of Passau. Her research has been supported, among others, by fellowships from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna, the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London, and the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin. She is a co-convener of the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine working group Beauty Studies in the Premodern World.

Current projects

Pygmalion: Artificial Bodies and Living Statues in the Arts (Künstliche Körper und lebende Statuen in den Künsten), in preparation (to appear 2026 in the Figurations of Transition series, Sonderzahl).

Sustainably Ephemeral: On the Materiality of Decay (Nachhaltig vergänglich. Zur Materialität des Verfalls,), co-ed. with Jasmin Mersmann and Yorick Berta, in preparation (to appear 2026 in the Figurations of Transition series, Sonderzahl)

Beautifying Artefacts, 1400-1700, book project

Physiology. Series of events on visualisations of physiological constitutions and their role in the genesis, transformation and dissemination of knowledge (medical, natural history, etc.) along concrete physical processes: Witnessing, birthing, ageing, dying, digesting (at the Focus Area Figurations of Transition at Knowledges & Arts).

Recent publications

Beauty: The Body as Artefact. Historical Sources from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period, ed. with Julia Saviello (London: Routledge, 2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003464846

Visual Arts and Medicine in Early Modern Europe and Beyond: A Collection of Essays and Sources, ed. with Robert Brennan and Fabian Jonietz, Manchester University Press, 2026, DOI: https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526182890

Cosmetics, Art, and the Body: The Beauty Culture of Philippine Welser at Ambras Castle, in: Baden. Eine historisch topographische Spurensuche, ed. Christina Antenhofer, Ulrich Leitner and Kordula Schnegg , Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press 2025, S. 115–133, URL: https://ulb-dok.uibk.ac.at/download/pdf/13221066.pdf

The Art of Beauty: Zur langen Geschichte von Kunst und Körperpflege, in: The Art of Beauty. 5000 Jahre Schönheit, ed. Thomas Kusterm exhib. cat. Innsbruck 2025 (Schloss Ambras), Wien: Kunsthistorisches Museum, S. 10–21

Forschung am Salzburger Barock bis zur Zwischenkriegszeit: Riegl, Sedlmayr, in: Praktiken des Neobarock, ed. Werner Michler und Clemens Peck, Wien: Sonderzahl, 2025, DOI: https://doi.org/10.25598/transitionen-2024-ii_4

Bianco e Biondo: la cura del corpo nel Rinascimento veneziano, in: Corpi Moderni. La costruzione del corpo nella Venezia del Rinascimento, eds. Guido Beltramini, Francesca Borgo and Giulio Manieri Elia, Ausst.-Kat. Venedig (Galleria dell’Accademia), Mailand: Marsilio, 2025, S. 226–235

List of Publications

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