Umberto Veronesi is an archaeologist and heritage scientist based in Lisbon. He is specialised in the study of pre-modern technologies and uses scientific techniques as a way to inform historical research. Umberto received his BA in Archaeology from Sapienza Università di Roma in 2013 before moving to University College London where he completed the MSc in Archaeological Science. His Ph.D., also at UCL, explored the practice of early modern alchemy through the analysis of laboratory remains from England and colonial Virginia. Umberto has collaborated with historians of art and science and his work has been published on archaeological as well as historical scientific journals. He is currently a research fellow at VICARTE, within the project ChromAz: The chromatic journey of the Portuguese azulejo, where he investigates the colour technology of Portuguese tiles through a mixture of scientific analyses and laboratory replications.
Representative works:
Veronesi, U., Martinón-Torres, M., 2022. The Old Ashmolean Museum and Oxford’s seventeenth-century chymical community: A material culture approach to laboratory experiments, Ambix 69(1):19-33.
Veronesi, U., Rehren, Th., Martinón-Torres, M., 2021. The philosophers and the crucibles. New data on the 17th-18th century remains from the Old Ashmolean laboratory, Oxford, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 35.
Veronesi, U., Rehren, Th., Straube, B., Martinón-Torres, M., 2019. Testing the new world. Early modern chemistry and mineral prospection at colonial Jamestown (1607-1610), Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11 (12),6851–6864.
Rehren, Th., Veronesi, U., Straube, B., Martinón-Torres, M., 2019. Glassmaking tests at early Jamestown? Some new thoughts and data, Journal of Glass Studies 61, 265-270.
Veronesi, U., Martinón-Torres, M., 2018. Glass and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe: An Analytical Study of Glassware from the Oberstockstall Laboratory in Austria, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 57 (25), 7346-7350.
VICARTE 