Organizers are offering the area a rare opportunity Tuesday night when Dr. Maria Georgopoulou speaks at the Burchfield Penney Art Center Auditorium.
The current director of the Gennadius Library in Athens, Greece, Dr. Georgopoulou has earned an international reputation.
"She has wide experience here in the United States because she founded the program for Hellenic Studies at Yale University where she was teaching before she became Director of the Gennadius," said Dr. Harriet Blitzer, professor at Buffalo State College's Department of Fine Arts.
"Just listening to someone like that, who has this kind of experience, is not only helpful for everyone, but it's a pleasure."
Dr. Georgopoulou's address, "The Venetian Cities of Crete," begins at 5 p.m. at the Burchfield Penney Art Center.
Sponsors of the event are the office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities, the Dr. Margaret E. Bacon Fund and the Art History Program of the Department of Fine Arts at Buffalo State College.
"Well, this scholar who's giving the lecture is the director of an exquisite library for the history of the Greek world from the late antiquity, so say from the 7th Century all the way through the present day," Dr. Blitzer explained.
"She has experience with all of these texts, and there are over 120,000 in the Gennadius Library which are concerned with the Greek world after antiquity, so it's a real opportunity for everyone."