John Spike

John Thomas Spike (born November 8, 1951, in New York City) is an American art historian, curator, and author, specializing in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods. He is also a contemporary art critic and past director of the Florence Biennale.

Spike earned his B.A. at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation was a study of Mattia Preti, a painter of the Caravaggio school. In 1999, he was awarded honorary citizenship of Taverna, Italy, Preti's birthplace. In recognition of his studies of two Knights of St. John, Mattia Preti and Caravaggio, in 2013 Queen Elizabeth II appointed Spike to the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. Provided by Wikipedia