Michele Dantini is Full Professor of Art History at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, where he has been teaching since 2016; and, since the same year, Visiting Professor at IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca. He graduated (MA) and earned his Ph.D. in art history and philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, with Remo Bodei as supervisor of his thesis; and Paola Barocchi as supervisor of his doctoral dissertation. From 2006 to 2016 he taught at the University of Eastern Piedmont "Amedeo Avogadro"; from 2011 to 2013 he directed the MAED Master (Educational Management for Contemporary Art) of the University of Eastern Piedmont|Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art; from 2018 to 2021 he was a member of the Scientific Committee of OGR|CRT Officina Grandi Riparazioni|Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, Turin.

His interests range from the history of art from the early modern age to the present: works, artists, movements, and contexts. Main lines of research: a) the Grand Tour and the figurative "construction" of the myth of Italy; b) the crisis of the Ancien Régime, considered in its long-term historical and artistic implications; c) the European avant-gardes of the early twentieth century, with particular reference to the Italian "valori plastici" movement, and the French and German-Slavic scenes; d) the art of totalitarian regimes between the two wars and the cultural policies of the Cold War; e) the European and American neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s and '70s, in particular the geopolitical-cultural, environmental, and travel-related themes; f) the art of the first two decades of the 21st century; g) the methods of art history and the relationship between art history and cultural history; h) art criticism and its recent history.

Previously on the editorial board of "ROARS. Return on Academic Research and School," Michele Dantini is currently a member of the editorial board of the class A journals "Predella Journal of Visual Arts" and "piano B." He contributes to "Rivista il Mulino," "Il Foglio," and "Corriere della Sera."

Between 2017 and 2018, he curated two major international exhibitions: “Paul Klee. At the Origins of Art,” MUDEC, Milan; and “Georges Braque vis-à-vis. Picasso, Matisse Duchamp,” Palazzo Reale, Mantua.

Professor of History of Art Criticism, she is Director of the Postgraduate School in Historical and Artistic Heritage, which is a consortium of 14 Italian universities. She is co-director of the class A journal “Fontes. Journal of Iconography and History of Art Criticism” and the series “Paradeigma,” and is a member of the scientific committees of three class A journals: “Rivista d’Arte,” “Studi di Storia dell’Arte,” and “Storia della Critica d’Arte.”

From 2014 to 2020 she was Director of the University Center for Scientific Museums at the University of Perugia and a board member of the Foundation for Agricultural Education of Perugia.

Research topics: art historiography between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, artist biographies, travel literature, art journals, museology, wooden sculpture, and the history of Umbrian art as well, collecting, dispersion of artistic heritage, iconology and patronage, Cesare Ripa’s Iconology. Author of 290 publications, she has written monographs on Palazzo Trinci in Foligno, the Napoleonic seizures in Umbria, the sculptor Nero Alberti da Sansepolcro, Pomarancio, Sassoferrato, Fabio della Corgna, and Cavalcaselle in Umbria.

She has curated numerous art history exhibitions. In 2018 she won the UmbriaRoma prize. In 2022, she was appointed by the Minister of University and Research to the national committee for the celebrations of the five-hundredth anniversary of Perugino’s death.  

In 2024, she was appointed by ANVUR as an interdisciplinary GEV for the enhancement of knowledge.