Skip to main content

Sara Galletti

Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708
114 S. Buchanan Blvd, A251A, Bay 10, Smith Warehouse, Durham, NC 27708
Office hours By appointment.  

Research Interests


I am currently completing the manuscript of a book tentatively titled History of Stone Vaulting in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean: Practices, Theories, and Patterns of Knowledge Transfer. The project, funded by a 2021-22 NEH grant, explores the history of a stone vaulting technique called stereotomy from a transnational, longue durée perspective across the Mediterranean from the third century BCE—when the oldest of known stereotomic vaults was built in the Sanctuary of Delphi—through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when pioneering theoretical works such as those of Philibert de L'Orme (1514-70) and Alonso de Vandelvira (1544-1626) transcended the boundaries of the building trade and stereotomy became the focus of a broader intellectual debate on solid geometry. The central argument of the project is that the history of stereotomy is far more complex and fascinating than historians have assumed, and that the practice offers a privileged perspective on the cultural and material exchanges that took place across spatial, linguistic, and temporal boundaries in the long history of the Mediterranean and its peoples. An introduction to the project can be found in “Stereotomy and the Mediterranean: Notes Toward an Architectural History” (Mediterranea. International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge, no. 2, 2017).

I am also researching two other book-length projects: Practice into Theory: Philibert de L'Orme, the Premier tome de l'architecture (1567), and The Profession of Architecture in Early Modern France and Paris of Waters. Practice into Theory examines Philibert de L'Orme's treatise in the context of architectural production and discourse in late medieval and early modern France, with a particular focus on the professionalization of architects. Materials based on this project have been published in “Philibert de L’Orme’s Dome in the Chapel of the Château d’Anet: The Role of Stereotomy” (Architectural History 64, 2021). Paris of Waters focuses on the impact of water on the demographic, social, architectural, and urban development of the city of Paris in the early modern period. It looks at water in a variety of forms—as a resource, a commodity, a means of transportation, a funnel for the city’s waste, and a cause of disaster and death—and makes water visible as a powerful agent of urban transformation.

Selected Grants


History of Stone Vaulting in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean: Practices, Theories, and Patterns of Knowledge Transfer

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Endowment for the Humanities · 2021 - 2022

Fellowships, Gifts, and Supported Research


Fellowship · 2021 - 2022 Awarded by: The National Endowment for the Humanities Project: Pre-Modern Mediterranean: Practices, Theories, and Patterns of Knowledge Transfer
Bass Connections · 2020 - 2021 Awarded by: Duke University
Bass Connections · 2019 - 2020 Awarded by: Duke University
Bass Connections · 2018 - 2019 Awarded by: Duke University · $22,000.00 Toward the project "Building Duke: The Architectural History of Duke Campus from 1924 to the Present"
Fellow · 2016 - 2016 Awarded by: Institute for Advanced Study, Paris · $43,500.00
Faculty Research Grant · 2015 Awarded by: Duke University · $5,000.00 Toward the project "Practice into Theory: Philibert Delorme, the Premier tome de l’architecture (1567), and the Profession of Architecture in Early Modern France"
Trent Memorial Foundation Grant · 2015 Awarded by: Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund Toward the project "Stereotomy in Philibert Delorme's treatise Le premier tome de l'architecture"
Humanities Writ Large, Emerging Humanities Network Grant · 2012 Awarded by: Duke University · $30,000.00
Course Enhancement Grant · 2010 Awarded by: Duke University · $5,000.00
Course Enhancement Grant · 2009 Awarded by: Duke University · $5,000.00
Collaborative Research Grant · 2007 - 2009 Awarded by: Getty Foundation · $190,000.00 Toward the project "Artistic Patronage, Cultural Brokerage, and Self-Fashioning in Early Modern Europe: the Arts at the Court of Maria de’ Medici."
Reader’s Digest Grant · 2006 Awarded by: The Lila Wallace Foundation · $8,000.00 Toward the publication of "Marie de Médicis et le Palais du Luxembourg, 1611–1631" (Paris: Picard, 2012)
Postdoctoral Fellowship · 2005 - 2006 Awarded by: Getty Foundation · $50,000.00 Toward the project "The Art of Patronage: Architecture, Urban Planning, and Ceremonial at the Court of Maria de’ Medici"
Jean-François Malle Fellowship · 2005 - 2006 Awarded by: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa Tatti, Florence, Italy · $55,000.00 Toward the project "Da Firenze a Parigi: influence medicee sulla progettazione e l’uso degli spazi della vita privata e di corte nella Francia di Maria de’ Medici"