Samuel Holzman

Holzman’s research interests include ancient aesthetic theories of architecture in the works of Vitruvius and Hermogenes, architectural polychromy, and the reception of ancient architecture in the modern world. One strand of Holzman’s research focuses on the technical side of construction, including innovative engineering and structural daring as well as labor and logistics. Technical features, like a broken capital with a repair clamp in the shape of a dolphin, can reveal how stone carvers thought about and responded to the material limits and potential of their medium. His archaeological research has also included studies of ancient musical instruments in domestic contexts and tapestry weaving.

Retrospective Columns: Ionic Capitals and Perceptions of the Past in Greek Architecture. Princeton University Press (2025). “Emblēma”: Stone mending as ornament on a Greek temple at Istros.” Art Bulletin 107, no. 3 (2025): 114–137. “Antonio da Sangallo and Saint Peter’s Keys: Building Technology and Vitruvian Theory,” with Carolyn Yerkes, Architectural History vol. 66 (2023): 21–56 “Concealing Structural Innovation in Greek Architecture: Flat Arch Construction in the 3rd-Century BCE Stoa on Samothrace,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol. 82 no. 3 (2023): 275-293