François Quiviger

François Quiviger is an Associate Fellow at the Warburg Institute, part of the University of London's School of Advanced Study. Born in France and educated in Canada with a B.A. and M.A. in Art History from the University of Montréal, he joined the Warburg Institute in 1983 where he completed his PhD in Combined Historical Studies.

Quiviger has held multiple roles at the Institute since 1987, including librarian, webmaster, researcher, and teacher, serving as curator of digital resources from 2010 to 2016. Since October 2016, he has been an Associate Fellow while also serving as general editor of the Renaissance Lives series for Reaktion Books.

His research primarily focuses on the history of cognition and sensation as it relates to the making and reception of images and the relationship between humans and nature. Quiviger has published extensively on early modern art and art theories, Renaissance academies, music, wine culture, and banqueting traditions. His notable works include The Sensory World of Italian Renaissance Art (2010) and Leonardo da Vinci: Self, Art and Nature (2019), with his upcoming biography Bernard Palissy and the Arts of the Earth scheduled for 2025.

From 2002 to 2016, Quiviger developed and raised funds for the Institute's digitization program, creating a free online electronic library of out-of-print sources including early printed texts on Renaissance academies, art theory, Arabic astrology, and Giordano Bruno's works, along with 10,000 images of early illustrated books available through the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database.

His recent scholarly output shows a continued focus on sensory studies, with publications examining topics such as the River Jordan in Western art, tuning figures in early modern art, and panpsychism in Bernard Palissy's work. His research demonstrates a consistent interest in how Renaissance thinkers understood the relationship between humans, nature, and artistic creation through multiple sensory channels.

Quiviger has taught yearly seminars on the Survival of Classical art, Renaissance academies, art theories, early modern art, decorative arts, and material culture for the Warburg Institute's MA course, the V&A - RCA MA in the History of Design, and the UCL MA in Reception of the Classical World, sharing his expertise with multiple generations of students.