THOMAS RUGGIO is a professor of fine art and art history at Iona University. He earned an MFA at Queens College, CUNY, and studied at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture. As an artist, his work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in galleries and museums in Mexico, Italy, Germany, and South Korea. In 2011, he founded the Studio Borgo art program in Lucca, Italy, where he served as director until 2019.As a scholar, Thomas Ruggio has focused on sixteenth-seventeenth century European painting and has curated exhibitions such as Peter Paul Rubens and the Flemish 17th Century and Cesare Dandini's Holy Family with the Infant St. John: A Rediscovered Florentine Baroque Masterpiece.