Fabio Gaffo, M.A.
Associate Scholar
Fabio Gaffo is currently a PhD candidate at the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Henri de Riedmatten. He holds a B.A. in Ancient History and Art History (University of Geneva) and an M.A. in Art History (Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne).
His thesis focuses on exiled patrons in fifteenth-century Florence, and the impact of political exclusion on cultural legacy; particularly investigating the multifaceted actions taken against these suddenly embarrassing objects – through their relocation, refashioning and alteration.
Chiefly grounded in archival research, his interests more broadly extend to provenance issues, including the art-market of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the transfer of cultural objects during the Nazi-era in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
Additionally, he worked in the Department of Sculpture at the Louvre (Paris), chiefly assisting with the final stages of the exhibition A Dream of Italy: The Marquis Campana’s Collection (2018) and the preparation of the exhibition Body and Soul: Italian Renaissance Sculpture from Donatello to Michelangelo (2017-2019).
More recently, he has been teaching at the University of Geneva (2023), giving a one-semester course on archival evidence left by Renaissance artworks, and has been providing research for museums and the Ministry of Culture (Paris) within the Mission de recherche et de restitution des biens culturels spoliés entre 1933 et 1945 (M2RS).