Irving Lavin (1927-2019) had a long teaching career at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. He won the Porter Prize three times before he was 40, and he discovered several previously unknown Bernini sculptures in Rome and elsewhere. In 1973, he was appointed to the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies, Princeton, NJ, from which he retired in 2002. His publications range from late antique floor mosaics and medieval architecture to Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, and Frank Gehry. His "Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts" (1980) remains required reading in Italian universities. His many honors include membership in the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Premio "Cultori di Roma," and a knighthood in the Italian Order of Merit Grande Ufficiale.
