Gloria Vallese graduated in Semiotics at the DAMS, Bologna University, in 1978, supervisor Umberto Eco. Has been full professor of Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice from 1992 to retirement (2021). Since 2018, she is a member SIA (Italian Society of Archaeoastronomy).

As a scholar of Iconography and Iconology, her initial research focused on Bosch, Bruegel and the themes of melancholy and madness in Renaissance art: Vizi, virtù e follia nelle stampe di  Bruegel il Vecchio, 1976; Leonardo’s ‘Malinchonia’, “ALV Journal” V, 1992, pp. 44-51; Jheronimus, Venice, 2019. In the past decade her interest has focused mainly on the astronomical iconography in 13th century Venice. The related research project, “Stars and travels” (2016), launched by a grant from the Italian Ministry of University and Research, led to two exhibitions on this theme (2016 and 2021), www.stelleeviaggi.org  , and to several publications: Stars and Travels/An astronomical cycle of the 13th century on the main portal of St.Mark’s Basilica, Venezia and Crocetta del Montello, 2017; La passione di Andromeda. Motivi astronomici nel Ciclo dei Mesi del portale maggiore di San Marco a Venezia (secolo XIII), ‘Annuario ABAVe’ 2017 (2021), pp. 149-166;  Manilius’ seaman: a subject for the so-called Allegory of Life (1561) by Giorgio Ghisi, Academia Letters, 2021, https://doi.org/10.20935/AL417; Possible representations of Vulpecula in some Italian medieval monuments, Academia Letters, 2021, https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4275; Venetian patere and formelle: towards an astronomical reading, ‘Proceedings of the 11th INSAP Conference’, Pasadena, CA, September 20-23/9/2022, https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/cosmexp/program.html (in press).