Charlene Vella, a lecturer in the Department of History of Art at the University of Malta, and The Sunday Times of Malta’s art critic, was awarded a PhD degree at a graduation ceremony held at the University of Warwick.

Dr Vella successfully defended her thesis on January 13, 2016. Her external examiner was Prof. Peter Humfrey, a renowned specialist art historian on Renaissance art in Venice.

Dr Vella commenced her PhD at the University of Warwick in October 2011, where she attended both the Coventry campus as well as the University’s base in Venice at Palazzo Pesaro Papafava. Her PhD research was carried out under the tutelage of Dr Donal Cooper (University of Cambridge) and researched the followers of Antonello da Messina – Antonio and Pietro de Saliba, and Salvo d’Antonio and their work in Venice, Eastern Sicily, Calabria, Malta and beyond.

This meant that Dr Vella carried out her research in the Veneto, Umbria, Marche and Sicilian regions of Italy, as well as libraries in London. She also visited several museums around Europe and the US to get first-hand knowledge of the paintings being studied.

Dr Vella will be publishing several research papers on topics pertaining to her PhD in local and foreign academic journals.

Charlene Vella is the author of The Mediterranean Artistic Context of Late Medieval Malta: 1091-1530 (Midsea Books, 2013).