Dr. Catherine DiCesare specializes in pre-Columbian art history and arts of the Americas, with research focusing on the conquest period in central Mexico. She has recently published her second book, Sweeping the Wary: Divine Transformation in the Aztec Festival of Ochpanizltli (University Press of Colorado, 2025), in which she takes a highly specialized exploration into Aztec painted books depicting indigenous calendars and public ceremonies. Delving beyond the extant written texts on this topic, Catherine decided to focus specifically on the imagery available in the ancient tradition of pictorial manuscripts in Mexico in order to discover what story the images themselves can tell us.
Dr. DiCesare’s research focuses particularly on Mexican pictorial manuscripts, calendars, and Aztec rituals. She teaches courses on the Pre-Columbian arts of Mesoamerica, landscapes of the Ancient Americas, and sacred objects and ritual practices. Catherine also holds an M.A. in Italian Renaissance Art from Syracuse University’s Florence program and Ph.D. in Pre-Columbian Art History/Arts of the Americas from the University of New Mexico. She teaches a variety of classes on western European art, including the arts of the Medieval, Italian Renaissance, and Baroque periods. She also teaches classes on Italian Renaissance art on-site for the department’s study abroad program in Italy.