Art historian Emily Fenichel explores Michelangelo’s friendship with poet Vittoria Colonna through letters, poems and drawings.
Art historian Dr. Emily Fenichel presents A Man Within a Woman: Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo’s Friendship on Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 6 p.m. in the Jepson Center’s Neises Auditorium, 207 West York Street.
The lecture explores the relationship between Michelangelo and the noble widow and poet Vittoria Colonna. After meeting in Rome in the 1530s, they developed a friendship through nearly a decade of letters, poems and drawings, continuing until Colonna’s death in 1547.
Fenichel is an associate professor of art history at Florida Atlantic University and the author of Michelangelo’s Art of Devotion in the Age of Reform, published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. Her current research examines Michelangelo’s images of women.
The exhibition will remain open until the lecture begins. Admission is free for Director’s Circle and general Telfair members and $20 for nonmembers. Registration is strongly recommended through Telfair Museums.
