Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway

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Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway (born 1929 in Chieti ) is an American classical archaeologist of Italian descent.

Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway is the daughter of Giuseppe G. Sismondo and Maria Sismondo, née Lombardo. As a child, Sismondo Ridgway first lived in Sicily , and during World War II in Ethiopia , where her father was stationed as an officer. After her father as a prisoner of war in Kenya had been interned, she worked as a telephone operator at the police headquarters in the Eritrean Asmara . Here she acquired her English skills.

After the war she returned to Italy, graduated from high school, and attended the University of Messina , where she graduated in Classical Studies in 1953 . A scholarship from Bryn Mawr College enabled her in the same year to take up studies in Classical Archeology with Rhys Carpenter , which she completed in 1954 with a Magister Artium . From 1955 to 1957 she continued her studies at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens , in 1958 she received her doctorate. In the same year she married the physical therapist Henry W. Ridgway Jr. and took the name Ridgway.

She had been teaching at Bryn Mawr since 1957 and continued to do so until 1960 when she took up an junior professorship at Hollins College in Virginia . Only a year later she returned to Bryn Mawr in the same position and remained there until her retirement. In 1963 she became a US citizen . In 1967 she became an Associate Professor at Bryn Mawr and directed the Summer Academy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. For the next two years she did research as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton . In 1970 she was appointed full professor, at the same time her first monograph on the strict style in Greek sculpture was published. In 1977 she became Rhys Carpenter Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archeology and she published her second monograph on Greek sculpture, this time devoted to the archaic period.

After a visiting professorship at the University of Pittsburgh in 1978, her third, now the sculpture styles of the 5th century BC, appeared in 1981. Chr. Negotiating monograph. In 1986 she opened the discussion about the state of archaeological science with an essay in the Art Bulletin . She vehemently distanced herself from the aesthetic approaches of art historical archeology, for which there were only gorgeous objects or “masterpieces” and which only turned to aesthetically pleasing things. It met with an equal share of approval and disapproval. In 1986 she pleaded for the authenticity of the Getty kouro , which the J. Paul Getty Museum had acquired for $ 7,000,000, in the course of a scientific dispute over the authenticity of the Getty Kouro , but changed her mind when more forgeries came onto the market. In 1988 she received the gold medal from the Archaeological Institute of America for her achievements. In 1994 she retired, but took over the Sather professorship at the University of California in Berkeley for 1996/97 and published further monographs on Greek sculpture in the following years. Her last work was published in 2004: Second Chance: Greek Sculptural Studies Revisited .

In addition to her own research and teaching assignments - she alone led 36 students to PhDs - she was editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Archeology for eight years . As an opponent of every kind of opaque art trade, she has managed during this time not to publish any article whose subject was the object of speculation in this regard.

Memberships (selection)

Publications (selection)

  • Observations on Style and Chronology of Some Archaic Sculptures. Bryn Mawr 1958.
  • The Severe Style in Greek Sculpture. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 1970.
  • The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 1977.
  • Fifth Century Styles in Greek Sculpture. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 1981, ISBN 0-691-03965-8 .
  • Roman copies of Greek sculpture: the problem of the originals. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1984, ISBN 0-472-10038-6 .
  • Hellenistic sculpture 1. The styles of approx. 331-200 BC Bristol Classical Press, Bristol 1990, ISBN 0-299-11820-7 .
  • Fourth-century styles in Greek sculpture. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison (Wis) 1997, ISBN 0-299-15470-X .
  • Prayers in Stone: Greek Architectural Sculpture (c. 600-100 BCE) Univ. of California Press, Berkeley 1999, ISBN 0-520-21556-7 .
  • Hellenistic sculpture 2. The styles of approx. 200-100 BC Bristol Classical Press, Bristol 2000, ISBN 0-299-16710-0 .
  • Hellenistic sculpture 3. The styles of approx. 100-31 BC University of Wisconsin Press, Madison (Wis) 2002, ISBN 0-299-17710-6 .
  • Second Chance: Greek Sculptural Studies Revisited. Pindar, London 2004.

literature

  • Kim J. Hartswick, Mary Carol Sturgeon: ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ: Studies in Honor of Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway . University Museum, University of Pennsylvania for Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia 1998, ISBN 0-924171-52-9 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ridgway, Brunilde Sismondo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sismondo Ridgway, Brunilde; Sismondo, Brunilde Maria (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American classical archaeologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Chieti