Julia Katz is a Ph.D. candidate whose dissertation, “Circe’s Wand: Reimagining Antiquities in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800,” explores real and imagined early modern restorations. “Circe’s Wand” attests to the erudition and astonishing invention required of the restorer as well as the way restorations influence how we remember and interpret the ancient world. Julia received her B.A. from New York University and her M.A. from the University of Delaware, where she wrote her Master’s Thesis on Gianlorenzo Bernini’s restoration of the Borghese Sleeping Hermaphrodite.
Julia was awarded the Anthony M. Clark Rome Prize in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies for 2024-25. She also was granted a fellowship from the Fondazione Lemmermann to conduct research in Rome in spring 2023. She has contributed an essay on drawings inspired by the ancient sculpture of the Niobe to the catalogue for the exhibition, Guido Reni, The Divine, at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt (in collaboration with the Museo del Prado, Madrid), and has presented her research at international conferences at the Warburg Institute and the Institute of Classical Studies, London; the Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow; among others.