UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies

Massimo Ciavolella is the Director of the Center and a Professor in the Departments of Italian and Comparative Literature.

As an Organized Research Unit of the University of California, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies supports the research activities of some 140 faculty members in twenty-eight different academic disciplines and programs. The Center offers fellowships and support for both graduate and undergraduate education, sponsors lectures, seminars, and conferences, and hosts visiting scholars and researchers. Its annual publications are Viator, established in 1969, and Comitatus, one of the oldest graduate student journals. A variety of books and monographs have also been published under the Center's aegis. CMRS does not award academic degrees, but provides information and educational opportunities to students, and consults with academic departments in the development of relevant classes.

The Church of Saint Ambrose in Milan, inspiration for the Lombard Romanesque style of UCLA's Royce Hall and Powell Library.

The UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) was established during academic year 1962-63 through the inspiration of the distinguished historian Lynn White, Jr., who served as its first director. Its goal is to promote interdisciplinary and cross-cultural studies of the period from late antiquity to the mid-seventeenth century, in order to better understand cultural, social, religious, and political issues that are rooted in the deep past yet continue to resonate in our contemporary world. The first page of the original draft and the complete submitted proposal for the establishment of the Center can be viewed as PDFs.

The banner image at the top of the page is from Plate 42, of The Armenian Gospels of Gladzor: the Life of Christ Illuminated by Thomas F. Mathews and Alice Taylor, © 2001. An exhibition of UCLA's Armenian Gospel Book, known as the Gladzor Gospels, was presented at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2001.