THIS PROJECT HAS RECEIVED FUNDING FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION’S HORIZON 2020 RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROGRAMME UNDER THE MARIE SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE GRANT AGREEMENT NO 101034371.

The information and views set out in this study reflects only the author’s view and the Agency (REA) is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Start date: 01/12/2022 – End date: 31/05/2025

CURRENT PROJECT PRESENTATION

The phenomenon of female sanctity particularly that of the cross-dressing of holy women in the Middle Ages has been subject of considerable research which has explored its literary, psychological, sociological, and/or theological, dimensions, both East and West, all suggesting the exhaustion of further research in the field. Still, there is an abundance of visual material which has been sporadically explored indicating the possibility and need of further research on their visual representations. As an exhaustive interdisciplinary analysis has not been carried out so far, my investigation will be the first in-depth comprehensive study on the artistic, cultural, and religious contexts in which depictions of cross-dressed saints namely, of Saint Marina la Monaca, were disseminated throughout the Middle Ages especially from the thirteenth- to the sixteenth century, both East and West. While previous scholarship offered a variety of interpretations and focuses as per disciplines, this project aims at furthering existent research demonstrating that the iconography of cross-dressed saints, more specifically, of St Marina la Monaca, is a result of complex phenomena which incorporate cultural, religious, and artistic exchanges between East and West through Venetian workshops, through iconographic conflation, and through the influence of Marian iconography significant to its evolution, popularity, and dissemination. This study offers a comparative approach on visual and textual material by concentrating on the analysis of religious (liturgical and hagiographical texts, miraculous narratives) sources in connection to iconographic patterns and their transition from one geographic area to another.

The overall objective of this project is to carry out the first comprehensive study on the visual construction of a cross-dressed saint, Saint Marina la Monaca, on the development and dissemination of her iconography, and on its transition from one geographic area to the other through the Mediterranean basin: from the Near East to the Iberian Peninsula.

The overall objective of the project will be reached by concentrating on several working stages: