Professor Paul Davies

Professor Emeritus
Postgraduate supervision
Research centres and groups
Research projects
My research focuses primarily on architecture in Italy 1350-1650. Areas of particular interest include centrally-planned churches and the architectural response to miracles; architecture in Venice and the Veneto; and Italian Renaissance architectural drawings. In addition to many papers, I have written Michele Sanmicheli (Electa 2004); The Paper Museum of Cassiano Dal Pozzo. A.X. Renaissance and later architecture and ornament (Royal Collection 2013); Codex Coner: Architecture and Antiquarianism in Early Sixteenth-Century Rome (Sir John Soane’s Museum, London 2024) all three with David Hemsoll. I have also edited, Architecture and Pilgrimage1000-1500: the Southern Mediterranean and Beyond Ashgate 2013) with Deborah Howard and Wendy Pullan.
Current single-author projects include a book for Cambridge University Press on the Italian Renaissance Centrally Planned Church and another on Jacopo Sansovino. Among edited ones are a two-volume study of S. Maria della Pace in Rome, entitled Templum Pacis: Storia della Chiesa di Santa Maria Della Pace a Roma tra Quattrocento e Ottocento (Special issue of Bollettino d’Arte, forthcoming 2025) and The Allure of Rome: Studying Ancient Architecture 1500-1550 (Cambridge University Press and British School in Rome, forthcoming 2026/7).