iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 20/09/2026

With the relics of the True Cross and of Christ’s Passion, and the soil from Mount Calvary, a piece of Jerusalem was brought to Rome by Saint Helena and still lives there, in a city understood as its heir and as the stage of the continuation of Christian history. substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

Can a displaced object carry within itself a trace of its original place and of the people who touched it? This is the significance with which the relics, and in particular the relics of the True Cro...

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 13/09/2026

The recap of which artworks were exactly stolen at the Museo Regionale Accascina di Messina on 15 August is necessary as the news gave different numbers. The iTPC database by the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale is a useful means of verification substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

What exactly was stolen from the Museo Regionale Accascina di Messina? Almost a month has passed since the theft that took place on the evening of 15 August 2026 at the Museo Regionale Accascina di M...

001

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 29/08/2026

BiASA (Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte) in Rome is a public specialist library devoted to archaeology and art history. Its collections include sales catalogues, essential sources for tracing the transfers of artworks. substack.com/@flaviadenic... #HigherEd #Academia #AcademicSky #EduSky

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

Why I believe BiASA (Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte) in Rome is relevant to provenance researchers. BiASA is a public specialist library devoted to archaeology and art history. This me...

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 23/08/2026

If you missed some notes and want to catch up, here is the reading list of my second month of "Provenance Research and Art History" publication on Substack (mid July - mid August) 💌 substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

Second month of Provenance Research and Art History on Substack SUMMARY (July 18-August 16, 2026) 💌 A “provenance research stay at the Fondazione Federico Zeri in Bologna”, Note of July 18, 2026,...

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 21/08/2026

Archivists and librarians can become our eyes and hands at a distance, helping us recover another fragment of an artwork’s history. Thanks to Patrizia Zanotti at the Emeroteca Queriniana di Brescia, who examined several newspaper issues until she found the one I needed substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

The invisible eyes and hands behind provenance research. Following the transfers of an artwork often requires consulting documents and publications scattered across different cities and sometimes dif...

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 16/08/2026

To reconstruct the removal of the altarpiece from S. Girolamo della Carità, I began my research relying on a comparison of the surviving inventories of the church. But I found it explicitly recorded in one of the later annotations added to a 1788 inventory flaviadenicola.substack.com/p/domenichin...

flaviadenicola.substack.com

Domenichino’s altarpiece removed from its church at night

Later annotations in a 1788 inventory of San Girolamo della Carità in Rome

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 02/08/2026

From Bologna to Rome: my research continues with a recurring work, the bibliographic survey at the Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute for Art History, an important specialized library and research institute. substack.com/@flaviadenic... #HigherEd #Academia #AcademicSky #EduSky

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

From Bologna to Rome: my research continues with an essential and recurring work, the bibliographic survey at the Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute for Art History, an important specialized...

020

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 31/07/2026

The Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans has launched a public campaign to locate and recover 424 paintings currently missing from its collections. You’ll find the link to the museum’s complete catalogue of the missing artworks as a freely accessible PDF document in my note: substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

Have you ever seen any of these artworks? They are “WANTED !” by the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, which, together with the city of Orléans in France, has launched a public campaign to locate and r...

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 31/07/2026

An update on my provenance research at the Fondazione Federico Zeri in Bologna. Even if, so far, I have found no further trace of the painting I am researching, I did find documentation relating to another painting that may have belonged to the same original collection. substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

On unexpected findings in the archive; or, an update on my provenance research at the Fondazione Federico Zeri in Bologna. Why start in Bologna? The last known record of the painting is associated t...

010

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 29/07/2026

I spent a provenance research stay at the Fondazione Federico Zeri in Bologna, a major center for art-historical research. I am researching a painting that once belonged to an aristocratic family collection and later entered the art market. I will share further updates. substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

Earlier this week, I spent a provenance research stay at the Fondazione Federico Zeri in Bologna, a major center for art-historical research. This time, I am researching not an altarpiece, but a paint...

110

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 27/07/2026

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced the return of some objects to Italy: a bronze relief, late 6th c. BC; a marble fish plate, c. 400 BC; two marble dishes,4th c. BC; a terracotta psykter-column-krater; a group of bronze fibulae and bracelets, 9th-6th c. BC. substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

“Provenance research is an ongoing process of dialogue and cooperation”. [Lucian Simmons (The Met’s Head of Provenance)]. A recent press release, published on July 8, 2026, reports that The Metropo...

0286

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 26/07/2026

How can the visit to an exhibition, such as “Vasari e Roma” at Palazzo Caffarelli, Capitoline Museums, reveal provenance histories? Object histories will emerge as we will move through manuscript documents, looted and restituted art, and dispersal of chapel decorations. substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

How can the visit to an exhibition reveal provenance histories? Last Sunday, 5 July, I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition “Vasari e Roma” at Palazzo Caffarelli and to return to some of the h...

010

Reposted by Flavia De Nicola, PhD

HMML @visithmml.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Digitization & cataloging are complete for the #Armenian manuscripts at the Pontificio Collegio Armeno in Rome, Italy. These #Manuscripts represent an important witness to the history of Armenian religious, intellectual, & communal life in #Rome. Learn more: bit.ly/4eEMDlz

Illuminated Mashtotsʻ, copied in Artskē, Kajberunik‘, Eastern Turkey (modern-day Adilcevaz, Turkey), in the year 1432, by priest Karapet. (PCA 00062)

02710

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 22/07/2026

A colorful parade of artworks removed from Roman and Florentine settings and leading to the Musée Napoléon in Paris is unfolding around the body of this grandiose Etruscan style vase, produced by the Manufacture impériale de Sèvres between 1810 and 1813. Full note here: substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

The iconography and propaganda of a seizure. A monumental vase in Etruscan style, 127.2 cm high, made in France in hard-paste porcelain and gilt bronze, and equipped with a rotation mechanism. This ...

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 20/07/2026

The video lecture series “Provenance Research and Art History” on my YouTube channel is intended to offer further theoretical reflections, sources and documents, object histories, and scholarly conversations on provenance research. youtu.be/TONBzk13xqI?... #HigherEd #Academia #AcademicSky #EduSky

youtu.be

Introduction | Provenance Research and Art History

YouTube video by Flavia De Nicola, PhD

020

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 19/07/2026

Several times in my work as an art historian, I have needed to reconstruct the contents and values of an art collection that is now dispersed, partially moved, or scattered among seats. Yet, I often had to begin with a different research first: provenance research. open.substack.com/pub/flaviade...

open.substack.com

Defining Provenance Research

Why it is not the same as the History of Collecting

000

Flavia De Nicola, PhD @flaviadenicola.substack.com · 19/07/2026

The displacement of an artwork transforms the way in which it communicates with the viewer. What still remains behind or outside the frame, that still needs to be reconstructed? This is the question at the heart of my new publication “Provenance Research and Art History” substack.com/@flaviadenic...

substack.com

Flavia De Nicola, PhD (@flaviadenicola)

A displaced artwork may be compared to a wildflower transplanted into a flowerbed. Displayed in relation with other selected flowers, it tells a new story, it is invested with new meanings, it is stu...

000