Dr Louisa McKenzie holds a PhD in History of Art from the Warburg Institute, University of London (2023). Her work centres on the devotional art and material culture of late medieval and Renaissance Europe, with a particular focus on Italy. A key aspect of her work is an interest in materiality and its implications for how art works were perceived and used. She also has experience of teaching history of art, palaeography and language skills, and digital humanities techniques. Her forthcoming monograph, Re-materialising the Florentine Wax Ex-Voto, re-evaluates the place of wax sculpture in the wider fine and decorative arts of fifteenth-century Florence, and she will soon be published on topics including the locations of wax workshops in early Renaissance Florence, and the potential influence of wax ex-voto display strategies on the compositions of Botticelli. She also writes on arts, history, fashion, and culture topics for a general audience, particularly as a regular contributor to The Times. She is currently working on testaments in fourteenth and fifteenth-century Umbria.
