Born in Philadelphia, Julianne grew up in New Jersey, the third daughter of two lawyers, and has lived in New York, California, Rome, and Venice, Italy. She's been a teacher, an editor, an art gallery assistant, a translator, and now, a writer and a photographer. She writes on art, culture, travel, history, and spirituality. Her photos have been published and shown in exhibit spaces in the U.S. and in Europe, including London's Royal Academy of Arts. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, she's also studied writing at New York University, University of Iowa, and Kenyon College, and writes both fiction and non-fiction. In addition to her book on the art and philosophy of the Italian Renaissance, Outer Beauty, Inner Joy: Contemplating the Soul of the Renaissance (Bunker Hill, October, 2010), she is currently completing an historical novel that takes place in sixteenth-century Venice.
"I've always been searching for the way to live and interested in pondering the deepest questions of our existence. At the same time, I've always found it difficult to fully identify with any one spiritual tradition. Even as a child I would study books on various religions and cultures. In the house where I grew up, there was a room called 'the library,' where I spent a lot of time alone, dipping into books, looking for answers. Sometimes the family gathered there and my father would read about different places around the world.
Although I practice yoga and Buddhist meditation, a large part of my inspiration has come from spending time in Italy, where I discovered the ideas and images that form the basis of Outer Beauty, Inner Joy. Compared with people living in the U.S., Italians have often given me the impression of being more involved with the sensual aspects of day-to-day living. The old buildings, too, whether in ruin or in perfect condition, also seem more 'alive' than much of modern architecture.
In September 2000, I attended a conference in Florence under the auspices of the New York Open Center entitled: The Italian Renaissance and the Western Esoteric Traditions, where I had the opportunity to hear noted scholars of the Italian Renaissance. I had originally become acquainted with some of the Renaissance philosophers through the writings of Thomas Moore. But after the conference, I began to delve more deeply into the work of Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and other writers of the period. They had studied diverse religions and philosophies and tried to find the common thread in them.
I felt a strong affinity with their ideas and with their conception that the experience and emotional life of the individual can make an impact on the greater community—that each person has an influence on the whole. Reading their words and experiencing the art and architecture created at the time made me feel stronger and more connected to the philosophy and creations of the past. I realized why the buildings in Italy seemed to live. They were designed with 'divine proportion,' meant to harmonize with the mathematical principles of the cosmos. Joseph Campbell could have been speaking about the Renaissance artists and writers when he said, 'The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.'"