AIA Lecturer/Host: Barbara Barletta

Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Florida

Archaeological Institute of America lecturer and host Barbara Barletta is a Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Florida. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology from Bryn Mawr College, and her B.A. in Ancient History and Archaeology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Barletta’s research has focused on both Greece and Italy. Her first book examined influences from the Aegean Islands and coastal Asia Minor on sculpture and architecture in the Greek colonies of Sicily. For her second book, entitled The Origins of the Greek Architectural Orders, she investigated the beginnings of the Doric and Ionic styles in architecture, each of which developed in its own region of the Greek world. That book has recently appeared in paperback. Her current project is a study of the little-known Temple of Athena at Sounion, outside Athens. It expands her study of the architectural orders into the 5^th century B.C., a time when the geographical divisions were breaking down.

Professor Barletta has been a lecturer on the AIA’s national circuit for several years. She has led several previous AIA Tours voyages and study tours to Sicily, southern Italy, and Greece; and has taken students on study-abroad programs to Italy and Greece. She has published a number of articles, most recently “In Defense of the Ionic Frieze of the Parthenon,” which appeared in the AIA’s American Journal of Archaeology (October 2009). Professor Barletta has also presented numerous papers at Annual Meetings of the AIA and professional archaeological conferences in Europe, and appeared in the PBS/NOVA film, “Secrets of the Parthenon.”