Arnold Witte is an art historian specializing in the history of institutional forms of patronage from a transhistorical perspective. He has published widely on both early modern cardinals and the importance of their diplomatic, economic, political and cultural roles for the development of the arts in Baroque Rome, as well as on the impact of corporate collecting on the contemporary arts from 1945 to the present. Key publications are "Protectorship or patrocinio? The Accademia di San Luca, Its Cardinal Protectors, and Institutional Hybridity, 1577–1800” in Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 48 (2025), 119-140, A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal (Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition; Vol. 91) Leiden 2020, edited together with Mary Hollingsworth and Miles Pattenden, and the edited volume Corporate Collecting in the Worlds of Arts, Business and Cultural Heritage, Nai010 publishers, Rotterdam 2025. 

After obtained his MA from the Radboud University Nijmegen in 1993, he defended his PhD in 2004 at the University of Amsterdam where he has been employed since 2005, and where he has fulfilled several administrative roles, such as Program Director of the BA and MA for the Art and Culture Department. From 2015 to 2020 he was Director of Studies in art history and vice director of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (on secondment from the UvA). He is the recipient of numerous grants, including from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Fulbright Foundation, the Dutch Research Council, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, and most recently the Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venice and the NIKI in Florence.