Rate My Professor Arvi Wattel

His research focuses on questions of centre and periphery, marginalization and alterity in Renaissance Italy and, from a global perspective, Dutch seventeenth-century encounters with Australia and Asia. Major projects include 'City and Court in Renaissance Ferrara,' examining local identity under Alfonso I d’Este (1505-1534), and 'Visualising Batavia Silverware: Imaging and Analysing VOC's Precious Metal Trade Objects for Mughal India,' a collaboration with UWA, WA Museum, University of Amsterdam, and Rijksmuseum. He has secured funding including the 2019 UWA Research Collaboration Award ($11,500), Shared Cultural Heritage Programme grant ($24,574), and participation in the COST Action 'People in Motion' (EUR520,000). Key publications encompass 'Algiers on the Amstel: Portraying Thomas Hees’s Diplomatic Success in North Africa' (2023), 'Charting New Holland: Navigating the Interplay between Empirical Mapping and Imaginary Illustrations in 17th Century European Cartography' (2024), 'Good Vibrations. Mutual Love in Garofalo's Frescoes for Antonio Costabili' (2018), and contributions to 'VOC Collections: Scoping Report' (2025). Wattel curated 'First Encounters: Artist Interventions with the VOC Shipwrecks' (2025). He convenes the Research Cluster 'Entangled Histories of Emotions in the Mediterranean World,' coordinates the UWA History of Art Honours Program, and chaired the Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society (2021).