​Professor Denva Gallant is a specialist in European medieval art and architecture, with an emphasis on manuscript illumination and the figural arts of the Trecento. Her scholarly work explores themes of narrative, the rise of the eremitic ideal as exemplum virtutis, and issues of patronage in the Middle Ages. She has received a number of research fellowships including awards from Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies and Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Her current book project, In the Footsteps of our Fathers: Morgan Library's Vitae Patrum, (NY, P. Morgan Library, MS. M.626), explores identity construction and the revival of the Lives of the Desert Fathers at the beginning of the fourteenth century.