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Ph.D., Harvard University; Cambridge, MA.

Phone number: +39-055-5031361
Fax: +39-055-5031385
e-mail: rhatfiel@syr.edu

Biography
Robert (Rab) Hatfield has been teaching art history to students in Florence for thirty-six years. His teaching career began at Yale University in 1966 after he received his Ph.D. from Harvard with his thesis “The Three Kings and the Medici: A Study of Florentine Art and Culture during the Renaissance.” In 1970-71 he took a leave from Yale to participate as a Fellow at Villa I Tatti (his second fellowship at Harvard’s Center for Renaissance Studies).

His return to Florence proved definitive, and since 1971 Rab has been working and teaching at SUF. His research has led to fifteen publications, among them the much acclaimed book The Wealth of Michelangelo which has irreversibly changed our knowledge and understanding of the great artist. Much of Rab‘s research has drawn on original documents and his skill, instinct and patience for archival work distinguish his scholarship.

Transmitting his passion and skill for archival work is just one of the aspects that Rab has sought to impart to his students over the years. As Coordinator of the Art History Department at Syracuse University in Florence from 1982 to 2007, Rab has taught both undergraduate and graduate students.