Barbara Watts received her undergraduate degree in Renaissance Area Studies from The Catholic University of America, subsequent to studying abroad at Loyola Universityâs Rome Center. She attended graduate school in art history at the University of Virginia, with dissertation research in Florence, Rome, Berlin, Paris and London made possible by grants from the Fulbright-Hayes Commission and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Her primary area of research is Italian Renaissance art and literature; she has published and presented papers on Sandro Botticelliâs illustrations to Dante Alighieriâs Inferno, Michelangeloâs Last Judgment, Giorgio Vasariâs Lives of the Artists, and Botticelliâs rediscovery in the nineteenth century. Her work on Botticelliâs drawings for Danteâs Divine Comedy received widespread recognition in 2000, when she appeared in a BBC documentary on the subject and was one of three scholars to provide the audio-guide for the exhibition of Botticelliâs Dante drawings at the Royal Academy, London. Watts has taught an array of courses in art history and the humanities, and she has been recognized for her teaching at FIU with Teaching Incentive Performance awards and the Presidentâs Award for Excellence in Teaching.
