Administration/Artists

President Mother Betty Pugsley, CJ.

Academic Director Msgr. Timothy Verdon

Msgr. Timothy Verdon, an art historian with a PhD from Yale University, directs both the Diocesan Office of Sacred Art and Church Cultural Heritage in Florence, and the Cathedral Foundation Museum (Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore). Author of books and articles on sacred art in Italian and English, he has been a Consultant to the Vatican Commission for Church Cultural Heritage and a Fellow of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, and currently teaches in the Florence Program of Stanford University. He writes regularly for the cultural page of the Osservatore Romano and in 2010 curated the exhibit Christ. His Body, His Face in Art at the Reggia di Venaria Reale at Turin. Msgr. Verdon is also Director of the Centre for Ecumenism of the Archdiocese of Florence. He lives in Florence, where he is a Canon of the Cathedral. His two books, Art and Prayer: The Beauty of Turning to God and The Story of Saint Fraincis of Assisi: In Twenty-eight Scenes are part of the Mount Tabor Books series.

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Program Director Martin Shannon, CJ.

Fr. Martin Shannon is a liturgist (PhD, Catholic University of America), and author of various books and articles on scripture and spirituality. He is also an Episcopal priest, and the director of formation at the ecumenical Benedictine Community of Jesus on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and grown children. He is the Program Director of the Mount Tabor Ecumenical Centre for Art and Spirituality.

Artistic Coordinator Dr. Filippo Rossi

Dr. Filippo Rossi has exhibited since 1994, working on themes in Christian sacred art. Since 1997, Rossi has been a visiting professor at the Florentine Study Centre of Stanford University, where he teaches courses in studio art, contemporary painting, and museology. He also collaborates with Timothy Verdon in the Florence Archdiocesan Curia, where he is presently coordinator of the Office of Sacred Art and Church Cultural Heritage. Rossi was the youngest artist invited by Pope Benedict XVI to take part in a meeting held on November 21 2009 in the Sistine Chapel. He was called in 2011 by the Florence Cathedral Foundation (Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore) to take part in the competition for a pulpit for the cathedral. In 2012 he accepted the invitation of the Derix Glasstudio of Frankfurt (Germany) to work with their technicians on translating several of his paintings into stained glass. His most recent solo exhibitions were at the Museum of Portiuncula in Assisi, the Misericordia of Florence, and Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

Logistics Karen Moore, CJ.

Publicity and Communications Laura McKendree, CJ.

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