Faculty Profiles

Maurizio Seracini

Maurizio Seracini has spent a lifetime developing new ways to study art and historic buildings using advanced technologies. Seracini is a pioneer in the use of multispectral imaging (e.g., infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray etc.) and other diagnostic and analytical tools applied to works of art and structures. Dr. Seracini has studied more than 2,500 works of art and historic structures, ranging from Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and Botticelli’s “Allegory of Spring”, to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Adoration of the Magi” as well as the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Medici in Florence. In 1983, he investigated 19 paintings by Raphael on the 500th anniversary of the artist’s birth, and in 1991 he analyzed 19 paintings by Caravaggio in his role as scientific director of an exhibition in Florence and Rome. Since 1980, Dr. Seracini has lectured at institutions in Italy, the U.S. and internationally, and his recent work has been profiled in the New York Times, CBS's 60 Minutes, Washington Post, Time Magazine and many other local, national and international media. In February 2007 Maurizio Seracini was named the founding Director of CISA3, a partnership of Calit2, the Jacobs School of Engineering and UCSD’s Division of Arts & Humanities. His work was exhibited as part of “The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci” at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery in 2006, and later at the U.S. Library of Congress.

Capsule Bio:

Maurizio Seracini is the Director of UC San Diego’s Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), and an adjunct professor of structural engineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering. He is also a National Geographic Fellow. He joined the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UC San Diego in 2006, more than thirty years after graduating from UCSD with his Bachelor’s degree in bioengineering in 1973. Dr. Seracini returned to Italy for graduate school and received the Laurea degree in electronic engineering from the University of Padua, where he went on to study medicine. From 1975-77 he participated in the “Leonardo Project,” to locate the long-lost fresco, “The Battle of Anghiari”, and in 1977, he established Editech, a Florence-based company that was the first to provide art and architectural diagnostic services.

Education:

• Ph.D. Electronic Engineering, 1978, University of Padua, Italy
• B.A. Electronic Engineering, 1976, University of Padua, Italy
• B.S. Bioengineering, 1973, UC San Diego

Awards:

• Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences Award

Selected Publications:

• M. Seracini, “Diagnostic Investigations on the Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci (2006) in The Mind of Leonardo – The Universal Genius at Work, exhibit catalogue edited by P. Gauluzzi, Giunti Florence, 2006, pp. 94-101.
• M. Pieraccini, D. Mecatti, M. Fratini, C. Atzeni, M. Seracini, “A High-Frequency GPR application to the Cultural Heritage Survey: The Search for the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci” (2004), Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) Delft, The Netherlands, pp. 391-394.
• Seracini, M., “Digital Clinical Charts of the Galleria Borghese’s Paintings” (2002) in Incontri, exhibit catalogue edited by C. D’Orazio, Charta, Milan, 2002, pp. 108-115.
• Guidi, C. Atzeni, M. Seracini, S. Lazzari, “Painting Survey by 3D Optical Scanning: The Case of Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci” (2002) in Studies in Conservatio, Vol. 49, pp. 1-12.
• M. Seracini, “Diagnostic Cards” (1996) in Santa Maria delli Angiolini a Firenze. Dieci anni di rewstauri / Ten Years of Restoration catalogue, edited by M. Calafati, R. Lapucci, B. Deodori, Edifir Edizioni.

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