Dr Marta Cacho Casal

An art historian specialising in early modern Hispanic and Italian art, Marta’s research interests include portraiture, iconography, the religious image, the lives of artists and the history of collecting. She is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge, combining detailed academic research with an engaging approach that makes even complex works and ideas accessible.

Marta trained at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain before completing an MA in Renaissance Studies and a PhD at the Warburg Institute, University of London. She has worked in both universities and museums, including seven years in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum — experience that has given her an especially close understanding of how works on paper can illuminate artists’ methods, interests and intellectual worlds.

Her research has taken her to leading institutions in Europe and the United States. She held a fellowship at Villa I Tatti, Harvard University’s centre for Italian Renaissance studies in Florence (2011–12), was Senior Fellow at the Drawing Institute of the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (2012–13), and has held a Fellowship at the Italian Academy at Columbia University. She is also associated with the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Zurbarán Centre at Durham University.

Marta has published widely on Spanish and Italian art. Her monograph Francisco Pacheco y su Libro de retratos (Marcial Pons, 2011) was awarded the first Alfonso Pérez Sánchez International Research Prize on Velázquez and his era, while her recent book Damaged Soul explores the visual cultures of the Repentant Magdalene in the Hispanic world.

For Travel Editions, Marta shares her expertise in the Spanish Golden Age and the extraordinary collections of Madrid, providing valuable context on artists including Velázquez, Zurbarán, Murillo and Goya, while also exploring royal patronage, collecting and the wider culture in which these masterpieces were created.