In a photograph capturing a momentous friendship, two men stand facing opposite directions, clad in heavy clothes suitable for an Italian winter, looking at a series of frescoes depicting the life of Saint Anthony by Italian Renaissance painter Titian. These two men are Michelangelo Muraro, a native Venetian art historian, and David Rosand, CC ’59, GSAS ’65, former Meyer Schapiro professor of art history at Columbia.

Rosand and Muraro are the founding fathers of Casa Muraro, Columbia’s center for Venetian studies. The center is named after its original residents: Muraro and his wife, theater historian Maria Teresa Muraro, who left the property to Columbia in 2003. Twenty years later, the center is observing a new milestone in the home’s history.