BRITISH INSTITUTE - Key Persons
Agata Anna Chrzanowska (PhD) graduated in Art History with a thesis concerning twentieth-century photography and in Italian Studies with a thesis on the linear perspective in Renaissance painting from University of Warsaw. She obtained her PhD in Italian Studies from Durham University with a thesis on the relationship between the narrative fresco cycles and religious spectacles in fifteenth-century Florence. She has published on the Tornabuoni Chapel in Santa Maria Novella and on the history of Polish photography. She collaborates with the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and she works as licensed tour guide.
Job Titles:
- Rector, University of Florence
Amanda has lived in Florence since 1987. She trained to be an English teacher with The British Institute of Florence and started teaching in 1992 specialising in Business English. After graduating in psychology she also taught social psychology for the Open University's European Honours Degree Programme. In 2009 she took on the role of Head of Languages managing the English and Italian departments with over 2000 students per year. In July 2018 she became Deputy Director of the Institute.
Job Titles:
- Young Learner Coordinator
Annette has been working at the British Institute of Florence since 2001. She began teaching English prior to that in 1991, working in both Hong Kong and the UK as a teacher and teacher trainer along with overseeing summer school programs. She has the Trinity cTESOL and the Cambridge DELTA. Annette has been the Young Learner Coordinator at the Institute since 2009 running courses for students aged 5-18 years.
Founding Partner Studio Lombardi, born in Florence on 12/31/1959. Chartered Accountant. Registered in the Register of Chartered Accountants of Florence since 07/03/1984 at no. 319 section A. Registered in the Register of Legal Auditors with Ministerial Decree of 12/04/1995 - Published in the Official Journal of the Italian Republic n. 31 bis of 21/04/1995.
Beartrice works for the Leeu Collection as Office Manager of Leeu Villa Querce. She was previously on the management board for the Mayor's Office - International and Ceremonial relations - of the Municipality of Florence and she was Head Secretary for the Management Board for Tourism Agency of Florence and Head Secretary to the Minister of Culture and Tourism for the Province of Florence. She founded the Associazione Atelier degli Artigianelli, a cultural association that offers training courses in traditional artisanal crafts and she is the co-founder of the Associazione Amici della Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze.
Brian Young graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a bachelor's degree in Historical Studies. He subsequently gained a postgraduate qualification in teaching English as a foreign language and worked in several countries in Europe before starting his career with the British Council as an English teacher in Venezuela. He took on further teaching roles with the British Council in Portugal, Thailand and Colombia before studying further postgraduate qualifications in marketing and management. A subsequent move to Barcelona, Spain saw him take on a senior role at the Young Learner teaching centre Spain before moving to Saudi Arabia, where he was Deputy Country Exams Manager based in Al Khobar. More recently he has completed postings as Country Director in Rwanda and Mexico before moving to his current role as Country Director Italy.
Caterina Romei (MA) graduated in Art History from the University of Florence with a thesis on the ‘Counter-Reformation in the church of SS. Annunziata' and received her ‘laurea specialistica' in Museology with a thesis on ‘Visitors to the Uffizi Gallery at the end of the 18th century'. Caterina is a professional guide and has taught for many years on study abroad programs for American and International universities, among them Emily Carr School of art and Design, Vancouver, Canada and the New York State Teacher association. At the moment she is the head teacher in the art history department of the Bachelor Interior Design and Graphic program of the University of Chester in Florence.
Christopher worked for 39 years in the UK Foreign Service, before retiring in 2016. His final posting was as Ambassador to Italy for five years. He has been married to Nina since 1978. They have four children and a growing number of grandchildren. Their main home is in Oxfordshire but they also enjoy regular visits to a family home of Nina's in the Val d'Aosta.
Job Titles:
- Operations Manager and Exams Coordinator
Diletta Melani graduated in classical literature at the University of Florence. A former student of the British Institute of Florence, she began working at the front office of the Institute in 2001 then became head of reception staff. She has held the Exams Coordinator post since 2002.
Edward Llewellyn (Lord Llewellyn of Steep) was appointed His Majesty's Ambassador to the Italian Republic and His Majesty's non-resident Ambassador to the Republic of San Marino in succession to Jill Morris CMG. Ambassador Lewellyn OBE took up his appointment in February 2022.
Giulia, a native Florentine, graduated in philosophy at her hometown University, and earned a post-graduate degree in Library Sciences from the Vatican Library. She has collaborated with several libraries and cultural institutes in Florence and abroad, including the Biblioteca Berenson of Villa I Tatti. In January 2017 she proudly joined the Harold Acton Library of the British Institute of Florence.
Job Titles:
- Editor - in - Chief of the Florentine
Helen Farrell is editor-in-chief of The Florentine, a position she has held since 2013.
James has spent a thirty year career at Schroders, the London-based investment firm, as both an investment and business manager. His first career was in the British Army. He is an Associate of the CFA Society of the UK and has a Degree in Geography from Durham University.
Jason Arkles (MA) is an American sculptor working in the traditional methods and materials one would normally associate with a sculptor in Florence. His large-scale figurative work in bronze, marble, terracotta and wood can be found in public and private spaces, museums, cemeteries, and churches in Europe and America, including on the façade of Florence's Saint Mark's English Church. Trained in the studio of Charles H. Cecil and in a Pontifical Academy in Rome (sacred art), Jason runs a small teaching studio in Florence, in tandem with his professional career. Jason has also self-published two small books on sculpture; one being a manual for sculpting in clay using a living model, and the other, a translation and commentary on Leon Battista Alberti's Della Statua. website
Jeremy Boudreau (MA) joined the Senior Management Team of the Institute as Head of History of Art in 2014. His training is as a museum educator and art historian and his specialisation is the art and culture of Renaissance Italy. Today, he oversees a team of lecturers who contribute to the Institute's history of art courses and study abroad programming. After graduating with a degree in Museum Education from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Jeremy completed his MA in Art History at Syracuse University as a Florence Fellow. He is an accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society, a member of the Association of Art Historians (AAH) and a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).
Kate Bolton-Porciatti (MPhil.) is a lecturer in Italian cultural history and music at the Istituto Lorenzo de'Medici in Florence, where she teaches BA and MA courses in the humanities. She did her M.Phil. thesis in the late 1980s on the musical culture of early 15th-century Florence, since when she has spent many years exploring the relationship between Italian art and music in the early modern period. She has published extensively as an academic and as a journalist for the BBC and the Daily Telegraph, UK. Before moving to Italy permanently in 2006, she was a senior producer for BBC Arts & Classical Music in London where she won Jerusalem and Sony Awards for her programmes.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Fundraising Commitee
Hannah is a documentary film‑maker by profession and has made films for Danish TV, Channel 4 and BBC2. For the past 25 years she has worked primarily in the not-for-profit sector. She is Chair of MGC Futures, which is committed to supporting the next generation of theatre makers. She previously, inter alia, served for 8 years on the Board of The Donmar Warehouse Theatre and for 8 years on the Board of Women for Women International/UK. She has supported many educational charities, women's rights and arts organisations through her family's Charitable Foundation.
Laura Fenelli (PhD) is originally from Parma and has been living and working as an art historian in Florence since 2007. She has an MA in Medieval History of Art and a Ph.D. in Medieval History. She works on history of medieval and early modern images and saints' iconography and hagiography and she collaborates with the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. Since 2009 she has been lecturing Art History in English for various colleges and universities.
Lisa Kaborycha holds a Ph.D. in Medieval and Early Modern European History from the University of California, Berkeley. Her area of specialty is the cultural and social history of Renaissance Florence, as viewed through fifteenth-century Florentine manuscript anthologies known as zibaldoni. She has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship; a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship with The Medici Archive Project; and Harvard's Villa I Tatti Fellowship in Italian Renaissance Studies. For years Kaborycha taught courses in Renaissance History for the University of California and currently is an adjunct professor at the University of New Haven Tuscany Campus. An accredited Arts Society Lecturer, she has lectured in History of Art at the British Institute of Florence since 2014.
Job Titles:
- State Schools Coordinator
Louise studied modern languages at the University of Kent in Canterbury. She settled in Italy permanently in the mid-90s. She has taught all ages and all levels. She became the State Schools Coordinator in 2020. She now lives about 25km from Florence with her two Anglo-Italian teenage daughters. She loves family life, music, language, swimming and walking in the countryside among other things.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum
Luke is the fourteenth Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum. From 2012-19, he was Chairman of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where he led on the complete refurbishment of the British Galleries, a $22m project, which opened in March 2020. Luke has held curatorial positions at the British Museum, V&A and the National Gallery - where he led the successful campaign to acquire Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks for the nation and curated the highly-acclaimed exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci - Painter at the Court of Milan in 2011.
Grazia, a lawyer based in Florence and specialised in international private law, works helping clients with interests spread across the world to solve matters involving different countries and jurisdictions. She has been assisting members of the British Community, living or having interests in Italy, in cross-border legal matters for more than 23 years. Her main areas of work are real estate, estate planning and Wills, administration of estates in cross-border successions, protection of vulnerable adults and defense of human rights, intellectual property law and fashion law. She is a full member of STEP (TEP) that is the global professional association for practitioners who specialise in family inheritance and succession planning; she is also the coordinator for Tuscany of "Giustizia per i Diritti" a network of lawyers of the association "Cittadinanzattiva". She was appointed honorary secretary for Tuscany of the British Chamber of Commerce for Italy.
Job Titles:
- Senior Partner at Caldara
Senior Partner at Caldara & Associati ( www.caldaraeassociati.it ). A senior lawyer and member of the local Bar Association with over twenty years of experience in the field of protection and transmission of private person wealth with particular expertise in cross border issues regarding inheritance and beneficiaries' rights and other international matters. She is currently also focusing on Mental Capacity issues and diminishing capability topics regarding transmission of wealth and protection of beneficiaries' rights, both in local and international environment. Martina is appointed by the Tribunale of Florence (Italy) to act as Amministratore di Sostegno of less able people. Since 2005 she has been an active member of STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners), and is a frequent speaker and panelist at conferences and professional workshop in national and international events.
Michael was Managing Partner in Italy of Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson) an international firm of actuarial consultants before retiring in 2003. He has lived in in Florence since 1978 and was President of the British Chamber of Commerce for Italy from 1993 to 1997.
Job Titles:
- Library and Cultural Centre
Job Titles:
- Head of Finance and Resources
Penny joined the Institute in March 2015 as Head of Finance and Resources, previous to this she was Head of Corporate Services at the British Embassy in Rome. She worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for 25 years in various roles in London and abroad including Deputy Ambassador in the British Embassy in Panama, and Head of the VIP visits section in the FCO. She graduated from the University of Kent at Canterbury earning a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Europeans Studies and Computing and she holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Business Administration from the Open University. When she in not working for the Institute she works as a freelance translator (Italian > English) and in her free time she enjoys gardening, and cycling and walking in the beautiful Tuscan countryside.
Job Titles:
- Vice - Chancellor
- Vice - President
Professor Robin Mason has been Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (International) at the University of Birmingham since March 2016. A member of the University's executive, he has responsibility for all aspects of the University's global engagement. He moved to Birmingham after seven years at the University of Exeter, where he was first Professor of Economics, then appointed Dean of the University's Business School in 2011, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean in 2015. He had previously been the Eric Roll Professor of Economics and Head of Economics at the University of Southampton. He graduated from the University of Cambridge in Natural Sciences; he returned to Cambridge to complete his PhD in Economics.
His academic research concentrates on how firms respond strategically to uncertainty; and, more broadly, the incentives faced by economic agents in situations when they have imperfect information about their environment. (Formally, his area is game theory with incomplete information and learning.) He is the Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK. He is a decision-making Member of the Competition Appeal Tribunal; he has served on the CompetitionCommission/Competition and Markets Authority, and the Financial Conduct Authority. He has acted as advisor to a number of regulators, in both the UK and internationally; to the Prime Minister of Mauritius on competition policy; and to a number of private-sector companies worldwide. He was awarded Order of the Rio Branco (ORB), Officer class, for outstanding contributions in championing academic co-operation between Brazil and the UK.
Simon comes to the British Institute after a 30 year career with the British Council, most recently as Country Director in Poland. Simon studied History and English at Cambridge before training as a teacher at the University of London. Soon after graduating, he moved to Florence and taught at the British Institute for two years. During that time he established an Anglo-Italian theatre group in Florence, before returning to UK to train and work as a Theatre Director for a number of years. In 1987 he started a four-year position with the British Council in Rome, where his two younger children were born. Subsequent postings with the British Council took him to Buenos Aires, Sydney, Mumbai and Los Angeles - always with a strong focus on arts and education programmes. In 2004 he was awarded an OBE for services to British-Australian relations. He is delighted to have returned to Italy to lead the British Institute accompanied by his wife, Jennifer. Their adult children now live in Cadiz, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv and Sydney - but they all love visiting Italy!
Tessa is a historian, born and brought up in Florence. She moved to Poland in 1983 and lectured at the University of Warsaw until 2014. Author of books and articles on the history and culture of food. Since 2013 she is the president of the Fondazione per la Tutela del Territorio del Chianti Classico and since 2010 the president of the Centro Studi Famiglia Capponi.