Art history specialist to discuss medieval church treasuries

Catherine Fernandez, art history specialist at Princeton University, will present a public lecture, “Collecting and Context: Medieval Church Treasuries,” at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 4 in the DiStefano Lecture Hall.

Fernandez specializes in Western medieval art and architecture, with a particular focus on church treasuries, the afterlife of antique gems, Romanesque architectural sculpture, cross-cultural exchange in the medieval Mediterranean, and the function of ornament in medieval art.

Fernandez joined Princeton’s Index of Christian Art in 2013 after earning her Ph.D. at Emory University. She previously taught courses at Emory and Georgia State University, ranging from general surveys of Western and modern art to more focused classes and lectures dedicated to medieval art. She also worked for several years as a research services assistant at Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

She is currently completing a book manuscript, titled “Charlemagne’s Pectoral: The Medieval Afterlife of the Gemma Augustea at Saint-Sernin of Toulouse,” which traces the historical and cultural trajectory of the largest extant Augustan cameo from its creation in 1st-century Rome to its veneration as a Charlemagne object in Toulouse by the 13th century.