Tim earned his undergraduate degree in studio art at DePauw University and his Master's of fine art in painting at Indiana University. He has been adjunct faculty in fine arts and art history at the American University of Rome since 2006 and in the fall of 2009 he founded The Painting & Drawing Art Studio of Rome where he conducts group and private lessons in oil painting and drawing. For a look at his work, please visit the following website: http://www.americanartistinrome.com/

Diane Archibald holds a Ph.D. in Architecture, and is a professor of architecture theory, history, and analysis. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections of architecture, urban planning, and cultural studies. Diane is a Visiting Scholar with the University of Rome, “La Sapienza,” and a Research Fellow at the British School at Rome. Diane was the Founding Curator of the international architectural collection of drawings, prints, and rare manuscripts for the Canadian Centre for Architecture. She was also an advisor to the Getty funded Architectural Drawings Advisory Committee (ADAG), at the Centre for the Advanced Studies of the Visual Arts, Washington, D.C.

Darius Arya is a Roman archaeologist (Ph.D. UT Austin) who lives and resides in Rome, Italy. He is the co-founder and executive director of the American Institute for Roman Culture (www.romanculture.org), a 501c3 non profit organization which promotes and defends Rome's heritage through projects and unique teaching experiences for university-level students. He leads the archaeological projects, currently including the Villa delle Vignacce dig, and directs the program in archaeology and Roman civilization.

Christina Atkinson is a completing her dissertation at Columbia University, New York. Born in the U.S. to Italian parents, she seems to spend more time here in Rome than in New York. She specialized in nineteenth-century European visual culture and American art from the colonial era to 1945 before finally succumbing to the allure of eighteenth-century Italian art, which simply gave her another excuse to come live in Rome.

Francesca Barberini is an art historian with a degree in modern and contemporary art from the University of Rome, "La Sapienza". She specializes in the art and culture of the Baroque period, a subject on which she has published several essays. She is a licensed guide and leads itineraries all over Rome, a city she truly loves. She has worked for many Roman museums, such as Galleria Doria Pamphili, Galleria Colonna, Galleria Spada, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini and the Corsini Gallery.

James Barron, a private art dealer, writes for publications as diverse as Glamour, The Paris Review, and Garden Design.

Paul Bennett is an award-winning journalist who, for many years, was the Rome correspondent for Architectural Record and Architecture magazines. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, and Smithsonian magazines on such diverse topics as travel, archaeology, and technology. His article about sailing a small boat across the Atlantic for Adventure was selected for the 2006 Best American Travel Writing, while his feature story on underground Rome for National Geographic appeared in the 2007 Best American Science and Nature Writing. Paul is also the recipient of a Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing. With his wife, Lani Bevacqua, he founded Context in 2003 as an alternative travel solution for people desiring in-depth experiences. He holds a Master's degree in intellectual history from St. John's College and has authored several books on architecture, landscape, and urbanism. He and Lani have three daughters and currently live in Philadelphia, the home city of Context.

A former art teacher, Hilary Bockham has spent the last ten years designing major European art exhibitions of both contemporary and historical art. She has been a visiting lecturer at several U.K. design colleges and designed costumes for international theater troops.

Originally from England, Richard Bowen has lived in Rome for the last fourteen years. He holds a Master's degree in medieval and twentieth-century history from London University and, as this might suggest, has a broad-minded and synthetic approach to understanding Rome. Richard works quite frequently with institutional travel organizations, such as museums and church organizations, and as a result spends much of his time traveling all over Europe. He brings this cosmopolitan and pan-European experience to bear on his work with us in Rome, constantly making connections to other cities and countries in the course of his lectures and seminars.

John Boyden hails from Philadelphia where he studied Philosophy at La Salle University. He has a degree in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas and is currently studying canon law.

Liz Brewster is an American architect with degrees in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Rome specializing in restoration and urban design and has lived in Rome since 1988 working on design and research.

Cathy has degrees in both classical languages and canon law. In the United States, she taught Latin and Greek grammar, literature, and culture for many years at both the high-school and college levels. As a canonist, she also practices law and has published numerous articles on canonical and theological issues. Cathy currently teaches private Latin courses in Rome, where she is also working towards a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Institute.

Vannella Carrelli Palombi has a Master's degree in modern and contemporary art from the University of Rome, "La Sapienza". She has been leading itineraries of every period of Roman history for twenty years. She is a guide at the Vatican Museums and has worked in many of Roman museums, such as the Borghese Gallery, Castel S. Angelo, Galleria Colonna, and Galleria Doria Pamphili. She has also worked in the didactic section of these museums and has a specialized teaching degree.

Alessandro Celani is an archaeologist and art historian. He studied Greek and Roman Archaeology with Mario Torelli and Filippo Coarelli. He has published his undergraduate dissertation on “Greek works of art in the age of Augustus,” as well as a number of articles on Greek and Roman art. An expert in cultures and civilizations of the Mediterranean, Alessandro has travelled from Morocco to Iran, participated in excavations programs in Southern Italy and Greece, and lived in Athens for a long period. He collaborated with travel magazines, published a guide book of the Greek Islands and is now publishing his PhD dissertation on Hellenistic Sculpture of Rome and Central Italy. A booklet of photos and short poems by him was recently published with the title “Diario mediterraneo” (Mediterranean Journal). He gives tours in Umbria, Rome and Italy, lectures for public and private associations, and leads archaeological travels to Greece, Turkey, Libia and North Africa. He teaches archaeology and art history in American and Canadian universities in Rome, Tuscany and Perugia. He has two children, Sofia and Dario, and recently opened a B&B in Umbria.

Art historian Frank Dabell studied at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and is a former fellow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; he lectures for the museum throughout Europe. After many years in New York, he has returned to Rome, where he was raised, and is now on the art history faculty of Temple University Rome.

Daniela del Balzo was born in Naples, but has lived in Rome for many years. She has a Master's degree in marketing from Cornell University. Daniela's Italian Cooking School was established in New York in 1980 in cooperation with the CIGA International hotel chain, when she was called to organize Italian business lunches and dinners for American travel agents, fashion stylists, and managers of the hotel chain. She abandoned a successful twenty-year career in marketing with Alitalia Airlines to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a chef. She continued her studies at the renowned Italian Cooking School Gambero Rosso, the French Culinary Arts School & Le Cordon Bleu, and the International Cooking School of Naples. Daniela was recently featured in the Finnish Mondo magazine, in the travel guide, "100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go" by Susan Van Allen, and on the BBC special "Rhodes Across Italy", hosted by top British chef, Gary Rhodes. DANIELA'S Cooking School, is the brand name of her in-home catering and personal chef services. Being a chef has granted her the luxury of doing what she loves most: creating!

Gregory DiPippo, a native of Providence, R.I., studied classics in high school and as an undergraduate at McGill University. He has completed coursework for a Master's degree in theology at the Pontifical Institute for Patristic Studies, or "Augustinianum," in Rome and is currently waiting to take his comprehensives and defend his thesis on the church fathers. Gregory leads walks of the Vatican and other religious sites in Rome, but he is also a superb classicist and one of the few Context:Rome docents who can hold a conversation in Latin.

Philip Ditchfield has been working in Rome as a historical archaeologist for the last fourteen years. Trained as a byzantinist, he has excavated on numerous sites in England, Greece, Cyprus and Italy. During his doctorate at the Sorbonne, he specialized in the material culture of southern Italy during the Middle Ages. His nine hundred page encyclopedia, entitled Culture Matérielle Médiévale has been hailed as a classic in its field, bringing to light hundreds of previously unknown words and terms in medieval Latin and Greek that pertain to everyday household objects and paraphernalia.

Olivia Ercoli is a native English speaker, a Rome licensed guide, as well as an art historian and main contributor to the award-winning Eyewitness Guide to Rome. She currently teaches a course on Roman civilization at Lorenzo de Medici School in Rome, and has contributed to the National Geographic Lost Cities of the Ancient World. Olivia infuses her discussion of Rome with a sense of what it's like to grow up here and be Roman.

Sander is a lecturer in ancient and early medieval history at the Augustinianum of the Pontifical University and at the J. Felice Rome Center of Loyola University of Chicago. He obtained his doctorate at Oxford University, working on the church and cities of Roman Africa during late antiquity. Before finally settling in Rome in 2005, he worked at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Since 1997 Sander has spent considerable amounts of time in Rome for his research, which mainly concerns the city of Rome and its empire in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, but also Rome in the Republican period. Apart from occupying himself with ancient Roman bits and pieces, texts and stones, he also works as a delegate in Rome for the Dutch Bishops' Conference. And if nobody knows his whereabouts, he can often be found on the organ loft inside one of Rome's many churches, making an enormous amount of noise, or singing in a choir in St. Peter's.

Maureen Fant, a classicist turned food writer, is a frequent contributor to the New York Times travel section and other periodicals. Her books, described at www.maureenbfant.com , include Trattorias of Rome, Florence, and Venice, Dictionary of Italian Cuisine (with Howard M. Isaacs), and the classic source book on women in the ancient world Women's Life in Greece and Rome (with Mary R. Lefkowitz), the third edition of which has just been published. She is also author of a cookbook on Rome for a Williams-Sonoma series. She holds an M.A. in classical studies from the University of Michigan and completed the coursework and exams there for the Ph.D. in classical archaeology.

Numbered among the city's contagious enthusiasts, Valentina is also a native Roman who trained as a classical archaeologist at the University of Rome, "La Sapienza", before joining the University of Pennsylvania's graduate group of art & archaeology in the Mediterranean world. At present, she is conducting her doctoral research on the Capitolium, one of ancient Rome's most sacred and civically significant hills, which today exhibits Michelangelo's urban marvel. Valentina has written and published on a variety of topics spanning the ancient, early modern, and modern periods, including: papal designs to repurpose the Baths of Diocletian, Etruscan forgeries from the nineteenth-century, Italian legislation on the protection of cultural patrimony, and Mussolini's imperial models for Fascist Rome. Valentina possesses years of experience engaging University of California students in the discovery of Italy's multi-layered past in Florence, Rome, and Pompeii.

A native of London, but originally Italian, Daniela holds an MA degree in art history from La Sapienza University in Rome, with a specialization in comparative art. After obtaining a second MA in museum management in the faculty of architecture at the same university, she has worked for many years as a curator for the Umberto Mastroianni Foundation, collaborating with various artists. A certified translator, who works often for art editors, and a licensed Rome guide, Daniela's work encompasses various fields of the art world. A lover of “the south” and of Ancient Roman and Baroque art, especially Sicilian, she also has a passion for cinema, music, and literature.

Elisabeth Fuhrmann-Schembri has multiple advanced degrees in archaeology and classical studies. She has done studies in classical philology, specifically Latin, and ancient art history. A frequent lecturer and adjunct faculty at John Cabot University, Elisabeth is currently researching Etruscan cultures. She wrote her dissertation on Etruscan musical instruments and is an active member of Gruppo Archeologico del Territorio Cerite, a conservation organization in northern Lazio.

Livia Galante obtained a degree in Archaeology at the University of Rome, "La Sapienza" and has a Master's degree in the History and Conservation of Cultural Heritage from the University “Roma Tre”. Her main field of interest is Ancient Roman topography, as well as early Christian architecture. A Rome licensed guide and a native Roman, she is very enthusiastic in sharing the deep love and knowledge she has for the Eternal City with guests coming from abroad.

Joan Geller was introduced to yoga in the early sixties. Her interest has continued over these 40 years. She has studied personally with BKS Iyengar both in Europe and India, was a student of Vanda Scaravelli until her death in 1992, and continues her studies including hatha yoga, Sanskrit, Vedic chanting and in the tradition of the great 20th century yogi, Krishnamaryacharya. Her practice in Rome includes small groups and private lessons with a particular interest in prenatal yoga.

Ann Giletti received her Ph.D. in intellectual history from the Warburg Institute at the University of London. Her dissertation topic, a study of 12th century scholasticism, led her to Rome. When she's not spending her time in one of the centuries-old libraries in town, Ann works on several projects related to the city's topography.

Inge Hansen is a project director of the Butrint excavations in southern Albania. A native of Denmark, she has a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Edinburgh and has worked for many years with the British School in Rome on a variety of archeological projects. Her specialization is classical art, in particular the art of the Roman Empire and the imaging of women in the ancient world.

During her junior year at UC Santa Cruz, Heather left to do a three-month Italian language course in Siena. She has lived in Italy ever since. After finishing her studies in Italian history at the Universita' degli Studi di Padova, she became a certified sommelier through FISAR, one of the leading international wine organizations in Italy. In addition to her work with Context, Heather is currently teaching the Wines of Italy course for Lorenzo de Medici University in Rome. She has also recently been awarded a Pass with Distinction in the Advanced Certificate course from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust in London. In her ten years here, she has traveled extensively in Italy and Europe, tasting wine along the way.

A native of Chicago, Jessica studied fine arts and art history at Boston University. In 2004 she completed a three-year fashion design program at Accademia Koefia in Rome. The institute prides itself on instructing haute couture techniques and Jessica has found herself interning and freelance designing for numerous Italian designers. Jessica has been a two-time design participant in the runway show Concours Jeunes Créateurs Méditerrané in Nice, France. Her designs can be found in numerous boutiques in Rome, as well as her self-named boutique in Trastevere, which was recently featured in Elle magazine Italy.

Ursula Hawlitschka has recently finished her Ph.D. in art history at Temple University, writing her dissertation on 20th century Italian artist Enzo Cucchi. Originally from Germany, Ursula has extensive experience as a curator of art and lecturer. She worked as a docent, giving on-site lectures, for Context Rome in its earlier incarnation as Scala Reale.

Elizabeth Helman Minchilli was born in St. Louis, Missouri and lived in Rome with her parents when she was twelve years old. She majored in Art History at Boston University; she obtained a masters degree at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts where she concentrated on Renaissance Gardens. This lead her to Florence, where she lived for two years while researching her doctoral dissertation on the sixteenth-century Boboli Gardens. She has lived full-time in Italy since 1987, dividing her time between Rome and Todi, in Umbria, with her family. She contributes to a wide range of magazines, writing about the joys of Italian life, including food, travel, art, architecture, design and shopping. Some of the publications she writes for include The International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Town & Country, Architectural Digest and House & Garden. She just finished her latest book, Villa on the Lakes.

Eric studied historical linguistics and ancient Indo-European languages -- Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin -- at Rice University and the University of Pennsylvania. He then spent his twenties traveling around Europe, seeing historical, beautiful and interesting places and things, and learning modern languages. He came to Rome in November 2004. After a year learning Italian and studying Latin with the great Vatican Latinist Reginald Foster, he enrolled in the graduate program at the Augustinianum, the pontifical institute for the study of the Church Fathers. He received his Licenza (equivalent to an M.A.) in February 2009 and is now pursuing a doctorate in medieval philosophy, science, and culture at the University of Salerno.

Brette is a graduate of Peter Kump's New York Cooking School (now The Institute of Culinary Education). She's worked at several restaurants and catering kitchens in New York City, and as an assistant freelance food-stylist and recipe developer for culinary publications such as "Martha Stewart Living" and "Food and Wine." She ran the kitchen for the La Napoule Art Foundation in Mandelieu-La Napoule before moving to Italy, where she apprenticed at Florence's Cibrèo and Modena's Hosteria Giusti. She and her husband are currently living in Rome where she works as a freelance food writer.

Elizabeth Janus is an independent art critic and curator of contemporary art exhibitions. After spending several years in the Department of 20th-Century Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, she moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where she lived for 13 years. Since 1990 she has written essays and articles for major contemporary art magazines (Artforum, Flash Art, Frieze, Parkett) and for exhibition catalogues at European and American museums (Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf; Musee d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; Institute for Contemporary Art, London; Renaissance Society, Chicago). She is a regular contributor to Arforum magazine from Rome. She has organized exhibitions of Francesca Woodman; Tony Oursler; The Drawings of Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Kiki Smith and Sue Williams, Ketty LaRocca; Kristin Lucas, among others, both in Rome and Geneva. Most recently she contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue of the Egyptian artist Ghada Amer at the Museum of Contemporary Art Rome, or MACRO (Spring 2007).

Enthused by Italian history and culture, Adam first came to Italy as an exchange student in 2003 while studying for his BA degree in Modern History at the University of Oxford, St. John's College. Since the completion of his degree, Adam has specialized in the intellectual history of Renaissance art and philosophy, obtaining an MA degree from the Warburg Institute in London. He has also worked as an English teacher in Rome and presently works as a content editor.

Andrew Kranis is a LEED-accredited architect who came to Rome as a Fellow of the American Academy. He has remained in Rome to teach architecture and to research ecology and urbanism, in support of sustainable design projects such as his "Green Piazza" proposal for Rome. He has a varied background in design and historic preservation, including masonry conservation of landmark buildings in New York City and retail design for Whole Foods Market. Earlier in his career he worked as a theater director and as design manager for Japanese dance troupes touring in North America and Europe. He holds a Masters in Architecture from Columbia University and a B.A. from Duke University. He is a native of New York City.

Elizabeth Lev has a degree in art history from the University of Chicago and is currently finishing her graduate work at the University of Bologna with a thesis on Baroque architecture. She is presently teaching Renaissance Art at John Cabot University, and Baroque Art & Architecture at the University of Duqusne, Rome Campus. Not only is she a licensed tour guide, but she is on the committee that licenses all tourist escorts.

Canadian born, Karen received a bachelor's degree in art history from the University of Toronto and an MA in the same field from Rutgers University. Throughout her academic career she has focused on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, with special emphasis on patronage and gender studies, as well as Bernini and sculpture in the late Seicento. Karen recently finished Phd thesis, which combines her two main interests, namely the art and social history of 17th century Rome. When not buried under documents in Roman libraries and archives, Karen is most likely to be found running in the Villa Pamphili or scouring the city on the hunt for as-yet-unseen works of art and the next caffe.

Sara Magister has a master's in art history and a doctorate (PhD) in archaeology from the University of Rome. A native Roman, Sara has worked as the archaeological editor for the Italian national Encyclopedia. She also works as a consultant for the Vatican Museums and the former minister of culture, designing museum exhibitions and supporting the restoration of monuments with archive research. She is also currently working as a professor in an American University in Rome, teaching Baroque Art and Subjects and Symbols in Art. One of Sara's interests is the political use of ancient art during the Renaissance and Baroque and Pope Julius II's collection of ancient art, which forms the core of the Vatican's collection of ancient statuary.

Originally from Canada, Anthony Majanlahti has been living and researching in Rome for several years. His first book, "The Families Who Made Rome" (London: Chatto & Windus, 2005), has recently been translated into Italian, and he is currently working on a brief guide to Rome under the Nazi occupation. Anthony is an urban historian who specializes in Rome throughout its history, with an emphasis on the early modern and modern periods.

Cecilia Martini has a master's degree in Medieval and Renaissance art from the University of Rome, "La Sapienza." Although her specialty is painting and decorative arts, she has a broad knowledge of the history of Rome, and leads many antiquity-themed itineraries. Cecilia works actively as a curator of exhibitions and lecturer and is a frequent consultant with the Galleria Colonna. She also has a specialized teaching degree, and works as a visiting professor in several art institutes.

Alexandra Massini is a native Roman who studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where she obtained her B.A. and M.A. degrees with double distinction. She has worked at Sotheby's Auctioneers in Rome (Old master paintings and drawings) and the Thyssen Museum in Madrid. More recently she has written for Blue Guides and published her own guidebook to Rome. She has been invited as guest lecturer and study leader for various European and North American institutions such as the National Trust U.S., the Chrysler Museum of Art, and a number of international universities. Since 2005 she has been teaching for American study programs such as Rutgers and Vanderbilt Universities in Florence, CET in Siena, and Richmond University and CEA in Rome. Her fields of specialization include Roman Imperial Art, 14C art in Tuscany, Italian Renaissance Art, Michelangelo, the History of Sculpture, Baroque art in Rome. She is fluent in five languages including German and Italian (bilingual from birth), English, Spanish and French. In Rome, where she lives, she collaborates with the Colonna and Doria Pamphilj galleries and, as a licensed guide, conducts specialized visits for various cultural institutions.

After studying Law at the University of East Anglia in the UK, Petulia Melideo decided to return to her native Rome. She writes Rome and Naples guides for airlines, and leads a variety of orientation walks and chats in those cities. She's knowledgeable about shopping and "Made in Italy" culture and she just completed a course as Art Curator. Petulia manages the European operations of Context.

Following a two-year stint at the British Museum, Susanne has returned for a post-doctoral fellowship to the Warburg Institute, where she also completed her PhD in art history in 2005. She specializes in 16th and 17th century art, focusing on the links between Italy and the North. Although based in London, she has spent every minute of her free time in Rome since meeting her partner, a Roman, in 2001.

Carlo Micio is a licensed guide for the city of Rome with a strong background in the city's political history. He oversees many of our activities. He also plays (drummer) in a number of Rome bands.

An art historian and curator, Peter holds advanced degrees in art history from Williams College (M.A.) and New York University's Institute of Fine Arts (Ph.D.). A specialist in French nineteenth-century art, he has published widely about artist-travelers in the Orient. Before moving to Paris in 2000 to complete his dissertation on Théodore Chassériau, Peter worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Clark Art Institute. Recently, he has contributed to exhibitions appearing at the Louvre, the Grand Palais and the Institut du Monde Arabe. A fan of Balzac and contemporary photography, he is as fascinated by the changing urban geography of Paris as he is by its artistic heritage. Peter shares his time between Rome and Paris

Sarah holds a Masters degree in Italian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and a PhD in History from the University of Sydney. The subject of her doctoral thesis was sport and gender in Fascist Italy. She has lived and studied in Rome, Pisa, Bologna and Macerata. She has broad interests in history, contemporary Italian culture and politics, and art. Sarah has settled permanently in Rome since returning to Italy in 2007 as a fellow at the British School at Rome.

Linda Ann Nolan's primary specialization is 16th and 17th century Italian sculpture and secondary specialization is classical Roman sculpture. Her research interests include the history of art restoration, the history of art collections, and early modern Italian prints and guidebooks. Linda received a B.A. in Fine Arts and Art history from Lake Forest College, and M.A. in Art History from the University of Southern California, where she is also completing a PhD. Linda participated in the American Academy in Rome's summer archaeology program excavating in the Roman Forum, and prior to that excavated at Pompeii with the University of Rome. Linda held positions for several years in the Getty Research Institute's Scholars Program and in the Museum Education Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has received fellowships and grants from the Borchard Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, and Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Linda is currently in residence in Rome conducting research for her PhD dissertation, "Tactile Reception of Sculpture in Early Modern Rome."

Silvia Orlandi is an associate professor of Latin Epigraphy at La Sapienza University of Rome. Her interest in ancient inscriptions led her to a specific knowledge of the Colosseum and other Roman monuments (Teatro di Marcello, Mausoleo di Augusto, Ponte Fabricio...), and includes a study of the epigraphic forgeries of the Renaissance artist Pirro Ligorio. She has also aided the Museo Nazionale Romano in the preparation of their epigraphic section and has worked on many other exhibitions throughout Italy, including the last “Roma e i Barbari” at Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

Caterina has lived most of her life in Rome, where she was born to an Italian father and a German mother. She graduated in Art History from “Roma Tre” University. Her concentration was Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicism. Her final dissertation focused on the presence of 17th century women artists in artistic biography and their role inside the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome. She is a licensed guide and works as Managing Editor at La Sapienza University, translating editorials, original manuscripts and spotlights from Italian into English

Katie Parla earned her B.A. in the History of Art from Yale where her studies focused on Roman art and archaeology, particularly the use of myths on carved sarcophagi. She holds a Master's degree in Cultura Gastronomica Italiana from the Unversita' degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata" and is a certified sommelier. She has contributed to books for the National Geographic Society, Rough Guides, Time Out, DK Eyewitness Guides, Insight Guides, Fodor's, and the Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Katie is also an urban speleologist for the city of Rome and has produced five episodes of the History Channel Series "Cities of the Underworld" in which she appeared as an expert on underground Rome, Palermo, and Naples.

José Grave de Peralta brings an unusual combination of theoretical knowledge and practice to his walks. A professional fine artist and graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, known for its unique Great Books curriculum in classical liberal arts and philosophy, Jose knows how to “read” the almost forgotten language of the Greek and Roman mythology embedded in the art and architecture of Rome. His studies of Plato's dialogue, TIMAEUS, for example, open up dimensions of Raphael's School of Athens fresco and of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes otherwise unsuspected by visitors to these two sites. In addition, his own native Cuban background and master's degree in Spanish literature from the University of Delaware in Newark give his walks a Latin American flair and sense of humor that can be most welcome elements. Jose also studied fresco painting, history, and restoration at the Spinelli Institute of Art and Art Restoration, in Florence, and has been teaching freehand drawing in Rome, ever since he came to the city in August 2008 with the graduate students of the University of Miami School of Architecture.

Tom Rankin came to Rome on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1991 after completing his architectural studies at Harvard. Tom was the founder of Scala Reale, an association of scholars leading small-group study walks that was acquired by Context in 2004. In 2002 he co-founded the American Institute for Roman Culture, for which he served as President, Board Member and Architecture Program Faculty until his resignation in 2008. Currently Tom is dedicating himself to the fields of cultural and environmental sustainability, architecture and design.

Sharon Salvadori is an art historian specializing in ancient Roman art. She is especially interested in the original socio-political and religious function and meaning of both public and private artworks. Her scholarly research currently focuses on religious imagery and the representation of gender in the funerary art of late antiquity. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University in 2002, specializing in both the Roman and medieval periods. Born of an Italian father and a U.S. mother she was raised in Rome and after completing her B.A. and her graduate coursework in the U.S. she returned to the city in 1995 where she has lived ever since. She currently teaches Roman, Late Antique and Early Christian Art and Architecture at John Cabot University and at the Loyola University Rome Center.

Patrizia Sfligiotti has a master's degree in Medieval archaeology and has studied at the Vatican and at the University of Aix-en-Provence. She was an excavator at the Crypta Balbi in the 1990s, arguably the most significant archaeological excavation in central Rome in the last century. She works for FAI - Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano (Italian National Trust) as Rome's cultural attaché. A dual citizen (USA and Italy), Patrizia is the author of the guidebook to Villa Gregoriana (Tivoli) and leads walks for us.

Annalisa Shield is a native of Rome who grew up in the midwest. She holds a B.A. in both English and Italian Literature and a Master's degree from the University of Chicago in Romance Languages and Literatures with a specialty in Italian. As a dual citizen of both the USA and Italy, she has traveled extensively in both countries, choosing to relocate to Rome in December of 2007. She and her husband currently reside in the city on the Lungotevere.

A Southern Californian by birth if not necessarily by inclination, Julian has spent much of his life living and traveling abroad from Tubingen and Berlin to Paris and London, Thessaloniki and Istanbul to Colima and Dar es Salaam. He received his BA in Renaissance literature and art history from Columbia University, and is currently writing his Master's dissertation at the Warburg Institute, London, on the medieval texts and visual sources which contributed to that masterpiece of Italian poetry and culture, Dante's Divine Comedy. (Beware, he is prone to spontaneous recitations.) His art historical interests range from Italo-Byzantine collaborations to the history of western connoisseurship, while his literary passions take him from Renaissance poetry in French, English, and Italian to contemporary verse in the same languages (and back again).

Saskia Stevens is currently doing her doctoral research in classical archaeology at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the impact of urban growth on city boundaries in Roman Italy in the late Republican and early Imperial period. Rome, Ostia and Pompeii are the main case studies of this research. Saskia did a Master's in classical languages and culture at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands with a strong emphasis on Roman domestic architecture. She wrote her Master's thesis on the Garden Houses at Ostia, a multi-storey apartment complex constructed during the reign of Hadrian. Apart from studies and in-depth analyses of Roman architecture, she has also taken part in many excavations at Ostia and Pompeii.

Jessica Stewart hails from Massachusetts and earned her B.A. in art history from Boston University. She got her first taste of Italian living during a semester exchange in Padova. She holds an M.A. in Renaissance studies from University College London, where her dissertation dealt with the development of Giulio Romano's early painting style in Rome. Her main areas of interest are Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture. She shares duties as Rome city manager and squeezes in walks as a docent when she can. In 2007 she also began managing Context: Venice and now divides her time between Rome and Venice.

Carol received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and holds M.A. degrees in Italian literature from the University of Toronto, where she has taught, and in art history from Boston University. Her academic career has concentrated in the Italian Renaissance, and her studies have spanned from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio to the Renaissance pastoral genre and decorative arts. She is currently pursuing post-graduate coursework in art history at Harvard University, and is examining the sacred and secular dimensions of the pastoral and its realizations in written and visual form. She is a visiting fellow at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies in Amherst, Mass, where she has given lectures and participated in conferences. Over the past three years she has also studied and worked in Florence, Italy, with the Lorenzo de'Medici School, participating in a variety of laboratory and fieldwork restoration projects throughout Tuscany. Through her affiliation with the Lorenzo de'Medici School's Restoration Department Carol has treated numerous paintings, frescoes, and gilded objects, and has worked on-site at locations such as Villa il Farneto in Vicchio and Santa Maria Castagnolo in Florence.

Giovanna Terzulli is an art historian and Rome native. She has a Master's degree in art history from the University of Rome "La Sapienza," with a specialization in Modern and Medieval art. She works as an editorial consultant for a number of cultural organizations in Rome including the Superintendent of Archaeology of Rome. Giovanna is fluent in Italian (mother tongue), English, and French, and has a unique interest in Mannerism.

Dario is a native Roman and has lived in this city for most of his life. He obtained his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rome, writing his dissertation on Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno (whose statue you can see in the Campo de' Fiori). He currently divides his time between Rome and the UK where he is a professor in the Italian department of Durham University. When in Rome he enjoys leading Context itineraries focused on the Renaissance and Baroque periods. His favourite spot is San Pietro in Montorio (site of Bramante's “Il Tempieto”) and the great views from the Janiculum Hill.

Gina Tringali recently obtained a Master's in food and wine history at the Universitá degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata” while working for Context Travel Rome. Gina earned her MBA at NYU and worked in financial services in Boston, New York, and London before moving into the food and tourism industry. In 2006, she worked for the Craft family of restaurants in NYC in business development & marketing and spent some time in the kitchen before relocating to Rome in 2007.

Andrea Viviani has a doctorate in linguistics from Roma Tre University in Rome. His dissertation deals with the relationship--historical and linguistics--between English and Italian. He conducts Italian Language Workshops for Context:Rome, and is equally able to give a lesson in how to speak/read Italian as he is able to lead a provocative discussion of language history and cultural meaning.

Neelson Witte is an archaeologist based in Rome. After his Master's degree in archaeology at the University of Amsterdam he excavated intensively throughout the Netherlands and Germany before finally settling in Italy. He has not only worked extensively in Rome and Pompeii, but excavated Roman remains from as far south as Brindisi to Aosta in the north. Recently he started an archaeological company with some Italian colleagues that combines new technologies, such as 3D laser scanning, with traditional archaeology. Apart from applying these cutting-edge techniques, he still enjoys getting his hands dirty in the field.

Originally from New York, NY, Clem studied Classics at Harvard (A.B.) and Oxford (M.St.), where he focused on Greek and Roman historiography and 1st century BC Latin poetry. He has contributed to or edited scholarly publications on a range of authors, including Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, and Tacitus. He now lives in Rome, which he came to know well during his time spent speaking and reading Latin with the Vatican's Reginald Foster. Clem also enjoys more modern pastimes, such as soaking up Renaissance and Baroque art, following Italian news, and catching the views while running in Rome's parks.