Professor Elizabeth Lev

Elizabeth Lev is an American-born art historian who, while doing graduate work at the University of Bologna, first traveled to Rome to research her thesis on the Church of San Giovanni and Petronio.  She soon realized that, like Queen Christina of Sweden before her, she couldn’t live another day if she didn’t live it in Rome!  The Eternal City has been her home ever since.

Elizabeth describes herself as “a joyful member of the Rome faculty” at Duquesne University’s Italian Campus program, where she has taught art history since nearly the very beginning of the program’s existence.  Among a small number of Americans who has passed the stringent licensing exam for guides in Italy, her services as a guide are in high demand and she has been privileged to accompany many distinguished visitors, including former First Lady Laura Bush, through the Vatican Museums and to other sites of interest in Rome and beyond.

Elizabeth served as art history advisor on the films “The DaVinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” based on Dan Brown’s novels of the same names.  She appeared in the History Channel’s program “Angels and Demons Decoded” and served as the host of “Catholic Canvas,” a 10-part television series on the art of the Vatican Museums that aired on EWTN.  She has written numerous articles for Inside the Vatican, Sacerdos and First Things magazine, and also writes a regular column with Zenit News Agency. In addition to all this, Elizabeth has found time to recently complete her first biography, The Tigress of Forli: The Remarkable Story of Caterina Riario Sforza, soon to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Press.

 

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