Maria Del Buono

Maria is an Italian Art Historian with a passion for the role of art and its intersection across culture, visual language, and history.

She pursued a BA in Science and Technology of Arts, Fashion, and Performance within the Department of Humanities at the University of Palermo. Further specialising via an MA in History of Art from the University of Siena, graduating cum laude. Her Master's thesis stemmed from a deep-seated passion for graphic arts, particularly manifested through an in-depth exploration of the designs used for book covers. Maria conducted an extensive analysis of the prolific body of work by Ferénc Pinter, an Italo-Hungarian graphic artist whose illustrious career at the Italian publisher Mondadori left an indelible mark on Italian visual culture.

Maria completed a Ph.D. in Italian Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2021. Supported through an  AHRC scholarship via M3C (Midlands 3 Cities), her doctoral research fell within the innovative Interdisciplinary Italy project, led by Professor Clodagh Brook (Trinity College, Dublin) and Professor Giuliana Pieri (Holloway University, London), see: Interdisciplinary Italy | AHRC-Founded Research Project. Following her Ph.D, Maria has taken a teaching post at UoB focusing on Italian language and culture.

Maria’s doctoral research focused on the captivating interplay between artistic creativity and commercialization in Italian film posters from 1945 to 1969. This pivotal era in Italy's socio-cultural history saw the rise of consumer culture, vividly captured in the visually stunning and culturally rich film manifesti of the time, where artistic creativity met commercialization; resulting in fascinating artistic posters though not without challenges. Critically, her thesis represents pittori di cinema (‘cinema painters’) as cultural mediators and catalysts of modernization in Italy in the aftermath of WWII.