Robert Nelson

Robert Nelson studies and teaches medieval art, mainly in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the history and methods of art history. He was the co-curator of Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2006-2007. His most recent book, Hagia Sophia, 1850-1950, 2004, asks how the cathedral of Constantinople, once ignored or despised, came to be regarded as one of the great monuments of world architecture. It works with varieties of evidence pertaining to the history of Istanbul, medieval revival architecture, and the communities that supported and benefited from the study of Byzantium. Articles in press investigate Byzantine and Italian interrelations in the later Middle Ages and art, ritual, and public spaces in Constantinople.