Faculty
[in alphabetical order]
Andrea Averardi is an Associate Professor of Administrative Law at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, where he teaches, among other subjects, Regulation and Competition in the Digital Economy and Cultural Heritage and Law. He graduated cum laude in Administrative Law from the University of Roma Tre and he holds a joint Ph.D. in Institutions, Administration and Regional Policy from the University of Pavia, the University of Milan, the Catholic University of Milan, the Polytechnic of Milan and Eupolis – the Higher Institute for Research, Statistics and Education of Lombardia. He has been a visiting scholar at Columbia University Law School in New York and a visiting fellow at the City, University of London Law School.
Dr Averardi is a Technical Scientific Council of Experts member at the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Felicia Caponigri is a comparative fashion and cultural heritage law scholar whose research and teaching focuses on intellectual property. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at Chicago-Kent College of Law in the United States and a Guest Scholar at IMT School for Advanced Studies in Italy.
Lorenzo Casini is a Full Professor of Administrative Law and he teaches Global Law and Cultural Heritage and Law and the Rector of the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca since November 1, 2024. From 2002 to 2016 he taught Town and Country Planning Law, Cultural Property Law and Administrative Law at the University of Rome “ Sapienza”. After graduating in Law cum laude in 1999, he obtained a Ph.D. in European and Comparative Administrative Law from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 2004. He has been Research Fellow at the New York University (NYU) School of Law-Institute for International Law and Justice for the Global Administrative Law Project (2008-2009). He has also been Hauser Global Fellow and Mauro Cappelletti Global Fellow in Comparative Law in 2013, at NYU. From 2014 to 2018 he worked as legal counsel to the Italian Minister for Cultural Heritage and Tourism. From 2009 to 2014 he served as a law clerk to Justice Professor Sabino Cassese at the Constitutional Court of Italy. He has written several books and articles in the fields of public law, and comparative and global administrative law. He is the Co-President of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) and the President of the Institute for Research on Public Administration (IRPA).
Manlio Frigo is Full Professor of International and European Law, as well as International Contract and Arbitration Law at the State University of Milan. He is a member of the Cultural Heritage Law Committee of the International Law Association (ILA); Vice President of the International Society for Research in Cultural Heritage Law and Art Law, and member of the Legal Affairs Committee of ICOM. Advisor to UNESCO, Unidroit, the European Commission, and the European Parliament, he is the author of numerous books and articles on private and public international law, particularly on contractual obligations, international and European cooperation in civil and commercial procedure, international economic law, the protection and circulation of cultural property, applicable law, and the linguistic factor in the circulation of arbitral awards. Of Counsel at the law firm BonelliErede, Focus Team on Art and Cultural Heritage.
Patty Gerstenblith is Distinguished Research Professor of Law at DePaul University and Director of its Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law. In 2011, President Obama appointed her to serve as Chair of the President's Cultural Property Advisory Committee in the Department of State on which she had previously served as a Public Representative in the Clinton administration. Since 2020, she has served as President of the Board of Directors of the US Committee of the Blue Shield and Chair of the Blue Shield International Working Group on Countering Trafficking of Cultural Objects. She lectures and publishes widely in the United States and internationally on the protection of cultural property during armed conflict, preservation of archaeological heritage, and the trade in archaeological and other cultural objects. Her book, Cultural Objects and Reparative Justice: A Legal and Historical Analysis, was published by Oxford University Press in the fall of 2023. Gerstenblith received her AB from Bryn Mawr College, PhD in art history and anthropology from Harvard University, JD from Northwestern University and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Agnese Ghezzi is a Postdoctoral Researcher at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, where in 2020 she completed her PhD in Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage with a thesis entitled "The Handbook, the Field, and the Archive: Photographic Practices and the Rise of Anthropology in Italy (1861-1911). Between 2019 and 2020 she was a Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, in the department of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Wolf, and in 2018 she was a Visiting Student at the PHRC - Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester. Dr Ghezzi's research interests include the history of photography, visual studies, archival studies, history of science, colonial and postcolonial studies, museum studies, history of collections, cultural heritage, and curatorial practices.
Sharon Hecker (BA Yale University cum laude, MA and PhD in Art History, UC Berkeley) is an art historian and curator specializing in modern and contemporary Italian art. She is a leading authority on the sculptor Medardo Rosso about whom she has written numerous books and curated exhibitions (Harvard Art Museums, Pulitzer Arts Foundation). She was project Coordinator for Jenny Holzer at the Venice Biennale of 1990. Hecker trademarked The Hecker Standard® for due diligence on artworks and teaches courses on due diligence in Art Law LLM and Master’s Programs at European universities such as Università Bocconi in Milan and the Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. She is Coordinator of the Expert Witness Pool of the Court of Arbitration for Art, is on the Board of Directors of the College Art Association where she serves as liaision to the Professional Practices Committee. She serves as chair of Sculpture Vetting at TEFAF Art Fair and is Chair of the International Catalogue Raisonné Association. She co-edited with Peter J. Karol Posthumous Art, Law and the Market. The Afterlife of Art (Routledge).
Sonia Katyal is the Traynor Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law and the Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. She joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 2015 from Fordham Law School, where she had served as the Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Research. Professor Katyal’s research focuses on the intersection of technology, art, intellectual property, and civil rights. She is the author of Property Outlaws (Yale 2010), a book on civil disobedience in the evolution of property and intellectual property law, and a variety of works on cultural property and cultural heritage, including Technoheritage, a law review article published by the California Law Review in 2017.
Lily Martinet is the police officer in charge of immaterial cultural heritage at the French Ministry of Culture. Dr. Martinet holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the ‘École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Rennes’, a Law degree with a specialisation in international economic law and a PhD from the Sorbonne Law School. Since 2017, she has been teaching a course on international cultural heritage law at the New Sorbonne University Paris 3. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law, from 2018 to 2021 and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the ‘Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique’ where she was responsible for coordinating the Osmose Programme, a comparative study of national experiences in relation to intangible cultural heritage law. Dr. Martinet worked on the implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, for the French Ministry of Culture (2013) and for the French National Commission for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2017).
Anna Pirri Valentini is an Assistant Professor in administrative law at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca and an adjunct professor at Luiss University in Rome. She holds a master’s degree in law cum laude and a PhD in Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage. In 2018 Dr. Pirri Valentini has been a visiting research scholar at the Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique –École normale supérieure Paris Saclay– (Paris) and at the LSE- London School of Economics and Political Science (London). Her main areas of interest include cultural heritage legislation and art law, in a comparative perspective. She published articles on cultural heritage legislation and art law in Italian and international journals (Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico; Giornale di Diritto Amministrativo; AEDON; International Journal of Constitutional Law; Land), and in collective books. Her research has been presented in national and international conferences (Italy, France, England, Hong Kong, Chile, Poland, United States). Her book “Il controllo sulla circolazione internazionale delle opere d’arte” was published in 2023 by Giuffré Editore. Dr. Pirri Valentini is Deputy Secretary General of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S)
Delia Violante is the Founder of the Art, Law, and Finance Project at Berkeley Law. Before joining the University of California at Berkeley, she covered positions in public relations and communications at Barclays Global Investors and Novartis. Previously she was with The Boston Consulting Group in Milan (Italy), Chicago, and San Francisco. Delia holds a Laurea in History from Università degli Studi di Milano, a Post-doc specialization in Visual Sociology, Aesthetic Philosophy, and Art Criticism, and an advanced certification in Integrated Marketing Communications from UC Berkeley. Delia is fluent in Italian, English, and French.