George Bent

Bent teaches courses on medieval art, Renaissance art and gothic art. He has researched Italian art extensively and recently taught a course called Digital Florence in which students helped to digitally reconstruct the city.

George Bent

George Bent

Sidney Gause Childress Professor in the Arts

Curriculum Vitae

Program Affiliations

Education

  • Stanford University
    • Ph.D., History of Art; 1993.
      Dissertation: “S. Maria degli Angeli and the Arts: Patronage, Production and Practice in a Trecento Florentine Monastery" 
    • M.A., History of Art; 1988
  • Oberlin College
    • B.A., Highest Honors in History; 1985. 
      Honors Thesis: “National Socialism and the Austrian Anschluss"

Teaching

Bent teaches courses on Medieval and Renaissance Art and Architectural history, with a specialization on the visual culture of Italy. His research interests revolve around Florentine painting, manuscript illuminations at the end of the fourteenth century, and the digital reconstruction of early modern architecture using LiDAR scanners to produce point clouds of structures. These themes feature prominently in the courses he teaches at W&L.

Selected Publications

  • Digital Humanities Project: Florence As It Was: The Digital Reconstruction of a Medieval City (https://Florenceasitwas.wlu.edu).
  • Book: Bent, G. Public Painting and Visual Culture in Early Republican Florence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
  • Book: Bent, G. Monastic Art in Lorenzo Monaco’s Florence: Painting and Patronage in Santa Maria degli Angeli, 1300-1415 (Lewiston, NY: Mellon Press, 2006).
  • Article: Bent, G. “Florence As It Was: The Digital Reconstruction of a Medieval City,” Eikonocity. [Forthcoming, 2027]
  • Chapter: Bent, G. “Reconstructing the Sacristy of S. Miniato al Monte, Florence,” in Renaissance Reimagined: 3-D Technologies and the Future of Italian Art History, Eric Hupe, ed., Vernon Press (New York). [Forthcoming, 2027]
  • Chapter: Bent, G. “The Reception of Orcagna’s Tabernacle for Orsanmichele, Reconsidered Digitally,” Proceedings of the Andrew Ladis Trecento Conference, vol. III, Athens, GA, 2025, Daniel Salfati and Alexis Wang, eds., Brepols Press (Brussels, Belgium). [Forthcoming, 2027]
  • Chapter: Bent, G. “Lorenzo Monaco, Cosimo de’Medici, and the Extraordinary Commission for the High Altar of Sant’Egidio, Florence,” Proceedings of the Andrew Ladis Trecento Conference, vol. II, Nashville, TN, 2022, Theresa Flanigan and Trinita Kennedy, eds., Brepols Press (Brussels, Belgium). [Forthcoming, 2026]
  • Article: Bent, G., D. Pfaff, and K. Joiner. “A Digital Reconstruction of the Tramezzo and Presbytery in San Remigio, Florence: Toward a Union of Remote Sensing and Traditional Art Historical Inquiry.” Heritage 9(5), 178 (2026), 1-40. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage9050178 
  • Chapter: Bent, G. “Leonardo’s Civic Poet in the Five Grotesque Heads at Windsor Castle,” in Viaggio nel Nord Italia: Studi di cultura visive in onore di Alessandro Nova, eds. Dario Donetti, Hana Gründler, Mandy Richters (Florence: Centro di, 2022), 263-67.
  • Article: Bent, G., D. Pfaff, M. Brooks, R. Radpour, and J. Delaney, “A Practical Workflow for the 3D Reconstruction of Complex Historic Sites and their Decorative Interiors: Florence As It Was and the Church of Orsanmichele,” Heritage Science 10:118 (2022), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-022-00750-1. 
  • Chapter: Bent, G. “Jacopo, Niccolò, and Paintings in Books for S. Maria degli Angeli,” in New Horizons in Trecento Art: Proceedings of the Andrew Ladis Trecento Conference, Houston, TX, November 8-9, 2018, eds. Bryan Keene and Karl Whittingham, Brussels, Brepols Press, 2021, 53-78.
  • Article: Bent, G. “Adventures in Advertising in the Florentine Wool Guild,” Georgia Museum of Art Review (2017), 59-92.
  • Catalog Entry: Bent, G. “Lorenzo Monaco,” Encyclopedia Brittanica Online, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/348184/Lorenzo-Monaco 
  • Catalog Entries: Bent, G. “Andrea di Bonaiuto,” “Giovanni del Biondo,” “Bonamico Buffalmacco,” and “Master of the Legend of Saint Francis,” in Encyclopedia of Medieval Italy (Garland Publishers, New York), 2004.
  • Article: Bent, G. “A Patron for Lorenzo Monaco’s Uffizi Coronation of the Virgin,” Art Bulletin 82 (2000), 348-54.
  • Catalog Entries: Bent, G. “Painted Crucifix,” Master of the Corsi Crucifix and Maestro delle vitae Imperatorum. Allen Memorial Art Museum Catalog (Oberlin, Ohio, 1998).
  • Article: Bent, G. “The Scriptorium at S. Maria degli Angeli and Fourteenth-Century Manuscript Illumination: Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci, Don Lorenzo Monaco, and Giovanni del Biondo,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 55 (1992), 507-23.
  • DVD series: Bent, G. Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance in Italy, The Great Courses Company, April 6, 2012 (release date).