Rate My Professor Catherine Kovesi

Key publications include her seminal monograph Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200-1500 (Oxford University Press, 2002), which provides a comprehensive analysis of legislative efforts to control consumption across Italian cities; the edited collection Luxury and the Ethics of Greed in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2018); Ursula Frayne, a Biography (University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, 1996); and Pitch Your Tents on Distant Shores: A History of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Tahiti (Playright Publishing Pty Ltd). She co-edited the Medieval and Renaissance volumes of the six-volume A Cultural History of Luxury (Bloomsbury). Kovesi has held leadership roles as Chair of the History Programme (2022-23 and 2025) and Chair of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies. She curated the exhibition Rhinoceros: Luxury’s Fragile Frontier in Venice (2018) with an accompanying symposium, consulted for the Australian Council for the Arts at the Venice Biennale Arte (2017-2019), and delivered public lectures such as Portrait of Venice: Majestic Murano for the National Gallery of Victoria.