About the Journal

Journal of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art

The RIHA Journal was launched in 2010 by The International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA). It is a peer-reviewed and open access e-journal devoted to the full range of the history of art and visual culture. The RIHA Journal especially welcomes papers on topics relevant from a supra-local perspective, articles that explore artistic interconnections or cultural exchanges, or engage with important theoretical questions that are apt to animate the discipline. As a collective endeavor, the RIHA Journal seeks to share knowledge and materials issued by scholars of all nationalities, and by doing so, to make a significant contribution to dissolving the boundaries between scholarly communities. Languages of publication are English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

NEWLY PUBLISHED:

The Mona Lisa at the Galleria Borghese in 1913
Notes on the History of the Museum and the Role of Event Exhibitions in Re-Defining its Public
by Vanda Lisanti
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/riha.2026.1.113627

The Mona Lisa arrives at Palazzo Minerva, Rome, 21 December 1913; photographer unknown. Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome, Fototeca, Fondo Ministero Pubblica Istruzione, inv. no. 306727 (photo: ICCD, Rome)

The theft and recovery of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (1911–1913) marked a pivotal moment in art history, culminating in its brief exhibition in Italy before returning to the Louvre. While critics have extensively studied the Florence and Milan exhibitions, little attention has been paid to the Roman episode during which it was displayed at the Galleria Borghese. This event, which marks the first time the museum attracted a mass public, played a crucial role in shaping 20th-century exhibition culture. By examining archival, journalistic, and visual sources, this study explores the political and cultural significance of the Roman exhibition, its impact on debates about national identity, and its lasting influence on museum history.

UPCOMING SPECIAL ISSUE:

Mendicants, Humanists, and the Aesthetics of the civitas
Rhetoric, Political Debates, and Cultural Identity in 14th- and 15th-Century Italy and their Impact on Art, Architecture and Urban Space
Guest-edited by Claudia Jentzsch, August Bebel Institut, Berlin, and
Katharine Stahlbuhk, Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana / Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut

Bernardo Daddi, Allegory of Mercy, detail, 14th century, mural. Spedale del Bigallo, Florence (photo: Jentzsch/Stahlbuhk)

The title of this special issue invokes the concept of civitas, understood as the collective body of a town’s inhabitants bound together by a shared commitment to the common good. In contrast to the monastic orders, who typically lived apart from urban centers, the mendicant orders deliberately embedded themselves in the fabric of the city. Consequently, mendicant friars engaged in dynamic exchanges with the lay world, participated in humanist discourses revolving around the valori civici, and exerted both direct and indirect influence on conceptions of the "body of the city" – in its immaterial, imagined dimension as well as in its material, built form.

Bringing together seven case studies by scholars in art history, history, and the history of philosophy, this special issue highlights how mendicant involvement shaped art, architecture, and urban space in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italy.