Kate Bolton-Porciatti
Kate Bolton-Porciatti (MPhil) is a cultural historian specialising in the art and music of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Italy.
Her Story
Kate's scholarly approach is strongly interdisciplinary, drawing on art history, musicology, literature, and cultural history to bring Italy’s past vividly to life. A British-Italian citizen, long resident in Italy, she is widely respected for her ability to contextualise monuments, artworks, and musical traditions within the broader fabric of Italian history and culture.
Kate is a professor at the Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence and an adjunct lecturer for Marist University (USA). She also lectures regularly at the British Institute of Florence and teaches in the Summer programme at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Alongside her academic work, she has led educational and cultural tours across Italy for many years, designing and delivering programmes that combine scholarly depth with a strong sense of place. She is also an established travel writer and critic, contributing to The Daily Telegraph, House & Garden, Timeless Travels, and Condé Nast Traveller.
Before moving to Italy, Kate enjoyed an 18-year career with the BBC, where she worked as a producer in Arts and Classical Music. From 1996-2006, she was also the Artistic Director of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music.
Tours Curated by Kate Bolton-Porciatti
The Renaissance Odyssey
Long before the Renaissance transformed the world, the grandeur of the Roman Empire laid the foundations of law, language, and engineering. It is a story not just of marble ruins and artistic masterpieces, but of genius, innovation, and a vibrant legacy as enduring and inspiring as the culture it created.
