Gervase Rosser

Gervase Rosser 

Professor of the History of Art   

Affiliation: Faculty of History
Expert in: Cities and migration 
Geographic focus: England, Italy

Main research interests: 

• Painting in medieval and Renaissance Italy 
• Medieval urban history 
• Social history of groups and communities

One strand of my work is concerned with the history of visual culture, both within and beyond the conventional range of 'high art'. My art historical research is focused on late-medieval and Renaissance Italy. The other major theme in my work is medieval urban history. Here my particular interest is in how inhabitants of cities cope – with urban life, and more particularly with one another. This began with Medieval Westminster (1989) and has continued in a series of studies of English and European guilds and confraternities. My book, The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England 1250-1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), is in part a response to current political and philosophical discussion about the relationship between the state, the individual citizen, and voluntary associations.