Marlene Schwemer

Marlene Schwemer works on early modern architecture and art, with a particular interest in the intersections between the study of antiquity and architectural design practices in 16th century Italy. Focusing on the relationships between architecture, its representation on paper, and textual descriptions, she explores how the interweaving of fact and fiction shaped historical narratives and antiquarian knowledge during the Renaissance.

Marlene holds a BA and MA in History of Art and Architecture as well as a BA in Romance Studies (Italian major, Portuguese minor) from the University of Vienna. She spent two semesters abroad at the Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice and the Università Roma Tre in Rome. Her Master’s thesis explored the relationship between Andrea Palladio’s engagement with antiquity and his design for the Villa Pisani in Montagnana. It was awarded the 2025 Sir Ernst Gombrich-Nachwuchspreis by the Kunsthistorische Gesellschaft Österreichs (Austrian Society for Art Historians), and parts of this research appeared in the article “Sulle tracce del metodo progettuale del Palladio” in Annali di architettura 36/2024.

Her research has been supported by fellowships at the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani (German Center for Venetian Studies) in Venice, the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio in Vicenza, Italy, and the Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin in Einsiedeln, Switzerland.