Michele Dantini is a Full Professor of Art History at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, where he has been teaching since 2016; and, since the same year, he has also been a Visiting Professor at IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca. He graduated (MA) and obtained his Ph.D. in art history and philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, with Remo Bodei as his thesis advisor for his degree and Paola Barocchi as his Ph.D. advisor. 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 focus on the history of art from the early modern period to the present day: works, artists, movements, contexts. Main research areas: 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 art-historical implications; c) the European avant-garde of the early twentieth century, with particular reference to the Italian field of “plastic values,” as well as the French and German-Slavic contexts; d) art under totalitarian regimes between the two wars and the cultural policies of the Cold War; e) European and American neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s and 1970s, especially geopolitical-cultural themes, the environment, and travel; f) art of the first two decades of the 21st century; g) 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 now a member of the editorial boards of the class-A journals “Predella Journal of Visual Arts” and “piano B.” He collaborates with “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 School of Specialization in Historic-Artistic Heritage, which is consortium of 14 Italian universities. She is Co-director of the top-tier journal “Fontes. Journal of Iconography and History of Art Criticism” and of the series “Paradeigma”, and is part of the scientific committees of three top-tier journals: “Rivista d’Arte”, “Studi di Storia dell’Arte”, “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 board member of the Foundation for Agricultural Education of Perugia.

Research topics: art historiography between the 18th and 19th centuries, artists’ biographies, travel literature, art journals, museology, wooden sculpture and history of Umbrian art, collecting, dispersion of artistic heritage, iconology and patronage, Iconology of Cesare Ripa. Author of 290 publications, she has published monographs on Palazzo Trinci in Foligno, on Napoleonic requisitions in Umbria, on 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 marking the five hundredth anniversary of Perugino's death.

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