Davide Ferri, M.A.
Head of Research Coordination & PR

Davide Ferri is an art historian interested in the connections between images, environments, and political discourses, primarily from 1600 to 1850, at the intersection of art history, image history, and cultural studies. Since 2019, he has been a research associate at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, where he heads the research coordination and public relations unit. Additionally, he teaches as an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Davide holds a B.A. in Art History and Archaeology and an M.A. in Art and Visual History from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. He is completing a Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Bern under the supervision of Professor Urte Krass, as part of the doctoral program in Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies at the Walter Benjamin Kolleg. His dissertation project, "The Queen of Genoa and Baroque Territorial Aesthetics," investigates the political, devotional, and ecological agency of territories within the seventeenth-century dominion of the Republic of Genoa.
Before joining the KHI, Davide worked at various institutions, including the Humboldt Forum Foundation, the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, and the Cluster of Excellence 'Image, Knowledge, Gestaltung: An Interdisciplinary Laboratory.' He also served as a researcher for Berlin-based galleries, concentrating on East Asian ancient and contemporary art. Davide received fellowships from DAAD and the Swiss-European Mobility Programme. His publications, which cover topics from seventeenth-century visual culture to contemporary art, have been featured as catalog essays, articles, and reviews in leading journals. In addition to his research, he has extensive experience in project and research management, public relations, and outreach, working at the intersection of academic research, knowledge transfer, and public discourse.
- Mediterranean Sea
- Art and visual history, c.1600–1850
- Republic of Genoa
- Territoriality, environments, ecologies
- Postcolonial perspectives on embodiment and personification
- Concepts and constructions of identity in the visual arts
- Visualization of urban spaces
- ArtHist.net – International Communication and Information Network for Art History (Member of the Editorial Board)
- Verein zur Förderung der Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut) e.V. (Board Member)