Fabio Barry studied architecture at the University of Cambridge (MA, Dip Arch), and briefly practiced before receiving his PhD in art history from Columbia University. He formerly taught at the University of St. Andrews, and is now Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University. His research has often concentrated on art in Rome, particularly Baroque architecture, but recent publications have dwelt on medieval and antique art, especially sculpture. An ongoing concern is the imagery of marble in the visual arts and literature from antiquity until the Age of Enlightenment, in which he attempts to identify the evocative qualities of materials before the era of mass production and standardization distanced them from the realm of nature and myth. His article “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages” in The Art Bulletin won the 2008 Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize of the College Art Association. Awards include David E. Finley Fellow at CASVA, and Fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University.