PhD in Ancient Greek and Classical Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College 1980. Previous positions at UCLA (Classics), Columbia University (Art History), University of Chicago (Art History). She has written about the cultural life of Renaissance Rome, the sixteenth-century banker Agostino Chigi, the seventeenth-century Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, and is completing a book on the Italian philosopher and heretic Giordano Bruno. She also writes for The New York Review, and The New Republic on a regular basis.