What happens when art becomes an act of anatomy? When the human body, flesh, muscle, and bone, becomes the canvas through which the divine is revealed? The Renaissance marked this turning point: after centuries of ethereal figures floating in abstract space, artists rediscovered the incarnate human form. Some, like Leonardo da Vinci, sought truth through dissection, while Michelangelo saw in anatomy a path to transcendence. This talk explores how he fused science, beauty, and spirit (from the tenderness of the Pietà to the grandeur of the Sistine Chapel) and how the Catholic Church received his daring vision of the human body as a vessel of meaning.

Elizabeth Lev, an acclaimed art historian who teaches in Rome at the University of Mary and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, has served as a consultant to the Vatican Museums and written for publications such as The Washington Post and First Things. Author of The Tigress of Forlì and How Catholic Art Saved the Faith, she has appeared on The Today Show, Nightline, and 60 Minutes, and her TED Talk on the Sistine Chapel has reached over 1.9 million viewers! She is a well-known tour guide and has served as a consultant to the Vatican Museums for their art and faith itineraries, projects with the Vatican Patrons of the Arts and wrote “Vatican Treasures: The Via Pulchritudinis,” a film presented to Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. She lives in Rome with her husband, Thomas Williams, and their son Joshua and is a certified sommelier. Her insight brings the Renaissance alive. You will not want to miss this.

This event is co-sponsored by CHHASSEM-The Center for History, Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Arts in Medicine.