Jill Burke is a historian of the body and its visual representation, focussing on Italy and Europe 1400-1700. She is on research leave until September 2023, as she is the Principal Investigator of a Royal Society funded project, 'Renaissance Goo', working with a soft matter scientist to remake Renaissance cosmetic and skincare recipes (see link below).

The Renaissance Goo project is part of Jill's wider investigation into how people in the Renaissance tried to look good - how they sought to change their bodies, faces and hairstyles to meet beauty ideals. Jill's next book, How to Be a Renaissance Woman, delves into the pressures Renaissance women felt to look a certain way and also how they subverted beauty ideals and used them to their own ends. It will be published by Profile Books in June 2023.

Jill's previous book, The Italian Renaissance Nude (2018) was selected for Choice's 2019 Outstanding Academic Titles list, and reviewed as "essential" and a "keystone for future studies". Jill also co-edited The Renaissance Nude, the catalogue for the exhibition of the same name in Los Angeles and London in 2018-19, and was on the curatorial team of this exhibition. Previous to working on subjects relating to the body, Jill's work has focused on topics relating to social identity and the visual arts. Her interest in periodization led to her edited book, Rethinking the High Renaissance (Routledge, 2012); her interest in patronage and identity was discussed in her first monograph which was based on extensive archival research - Changing Patrons: Social Identity and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Florence (2004).