Sanguis Christi. Visual Culture / Visionary Culture (13th–18th Centuries).

The conference will take place from December 3–5, 2025, at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve).

This symposium proposes to explore how devotion to the Holy Blood, in its multiple forms and manifestations (relics, sacrament, miracles), shaped and nourished the emergence of a visual culture in Europe from the Middle Ages to the 18th century .

It is through the lens of the visual, whether visible or visionary, that the links between theological questions, the development and evolution of devotional culture—including its social and political dimensions—and their effects on modes of representation in iconography will be explored. By visual/visionary culture, this conference aims to give prominence to an approach that examines what is revealed of the Blood of Christ, exploring the articulation, even the tension, that emerges between what the miracle makes perceptible to the senses and what, by its very nature, eludes perception, thus opening the faithful to a spiritual and sacred dimension and to new ways of making the divine visible.

Organising Committee: Manon Chaidron (UCLouvain) and Mathilde Marès (UCLouvain)

Conference programme:

Wednesday, 3 December 2025 : Genesis of a Visual and Devotional Culture

10:30 – 10:45 Opening remarks by the organisers

10:45 – 11:30 Keynote lecture – François Wallerich (UCLouvain), Voir l’hostie saigner. Une expérience visionnaire devenue fait de société au Moyen Âge central

Session 1 – Seeing the Blood, but How Far? Acts of Revealing and Concealing
Moderator: Nicolas Sarzeaud

11:30 – 11:55 Renzo Chiovelli (Sapienza Università), Giulia Maria Palma (Università della Tuscia) and Rocchi Vania (C.I.S.Sa.S), The Worship of Christ’s Blood in the Saint Sepulcher of Acquapendente before and after the Eucharistic miracle of Bolsena

11:55 – 12:20 Pierre Fournier (ENS de Lyon), Croire, voir. La problématique visuelle dans les polémiques de sanguine Christi

12:20 – 13:00 Discussion

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

Session 2 – Writing, Imagining, and Staging the Precious Blood
Moderator: Stéphane Cabrol

14:00 – 14:25 Camille Salatko (Université Rennes 2), Jouer avec le sang du miracle des Billettes (Paris/1290)

14:25 – 14:50 Hadrien Amiel (Sorbonne Université / Université de Montréal), L’image et l’effroi. La présence du Précieux Sang dans les romans du Graal (XIIe–XIIIe siècles)

14:50 – 15:15 Anne-Gaelle Cuif (Université de Strasbourg), Sanguis suavis. La douceur et la suavité du sang christique dans la poésie religieuse italienne du Duecento. De la symbolique à la mystique

15:15 – 15:45 Discussion

Session 3 – Polymaterial Phenomena and Reconfigurations of the Visible: Blood in the Margins or Precious Blood = x
Moderator: François Wallerich

15:45 – 16:10 Mitchell Merback (Johns Hopkins University), Streaming, Staining, Stilled. Polarities of Attention and Desire in Late Medieval Devotion to the Holy Blood

16:10 – 16:35 Nicolas Sarzeaud (UCLouvain), Un tournant maculiste ? Remarques sur la preuve par la tache dans la dévotion chrétienne médiévale

16:35 – 17:00 Julie Glodt (UCLouvain), Cruauté eucharistique. Modes de présence et visibilité du sang du Christ à l’autel autour de 1500

17:00 – 17:15 Break

17:15 – 18:30 Round table chaired by Paul Bertrand (UCLouvain)

Thursday, 4 December 2025: The Mimesis of Blood in the Visual Arts

Session 1 – From the Living Manuscript to the Fleshly Book: Bodies and Media of Devotion
Moderator: Janig Bégoc

09:30 – 09:55 Marlene Hennessy (Hunter College), Sanguis Christi as Ink and Other Bibliophilic Metaphors in the Late Middle Age

09:55 – 10:20 Juliette Bourdier (University of Charleston), De la chair du parchemin au Sang du Christ, théâtralisation d’une émotion et psyché du désir

10:20 – 10:45 Discussion

10:45 – 11:00 Break

Session 2 – Performing Materiality in the Visual
Moderator: Ingrid Falque (UCLouvain)

11:00 – 11:25 Elliott Wise (Brigham Young University), Albrecht Bouts’s Diptychs: Beholding the Man and Painting in Blood

11:25 – 11:50 Arianna Favaretto Cortese (Università degli studi di Verona), Materialising Devotion. Techniques for Emphasizing Christ’s Blood in Venetian Woodcarving (15th–16th Centuries)

11:50 – 12:15 Janig Bégoc (Université de Strasbourg), La fente saignante du Psautier de Bonne de Luxembourg (1348) : entre agentivité de l’image du Christ aux plaies et homoérotisme féminin

12:15 – 12:40 Discussion

12:40 – 14:20 Break

Session 3 – Synesthetic Perception and Sensory Transports
Moderator: Julie Glodt

14:20 – 14:45 Karol Skrzypczak (Université d’Orléans), Voir les plaies, entendre le sang. Précieux Sang, martyre et cruentation sous Charles V et Charles VI

14:45 – 15:10 Pieter Mannaerts (Alamire Foundation), Civic, Canonic, Ecclesiastic. The Role of Music in the Holy Blood Procession of Bruges

15:10 – 16:35 Leylim Erenel (Courtauld Institute of Art), Visualising Civic Identity and Materialising Sacred Presence. The Processional Candleholder of Bruges’ Confraternity of the Holy Blood

16:35 – 16:50 Discussion

16:50 – 17:05 Break

Session 4 – Figures of Imitation: Representing Blood / Representing Martyrs
Moderator: Matthieu Somon (UCLouvain)

17:05 – 17:30 Mathilde Marès (UCLouvain), Du sans lieu au sang lieu. Anatomie des martyrs dans l’œuvre de Vittore Carpaccio

17:30 – 17:55 Ralph Dekoninck (UCLouvain), Le sang semence des martyrs. Ou les défis de la visualisation d’une métaphore absolue

17:55 – 18:20 Pierre-Antoine Fabre (EHESS), Saint Sang et sang des saints. L’effusion des martyrs (XVIe–XVIIe siècles)

18:20 Discussion

Friday, 5 December 2025: Precious Blood and the Testing of the Image / the Visual in the Age of Religious Controversies

Session 1 – Post-Tridentine Presences and Image Controversies: Seeing Too Much or Not Enough
Moderator: Alysée Le Druillenec

09:30 – 09:55 Justyna Łukaszewska-Haberkowa (Princes Czartoryski Library), The Jesuits and the Eucharist. Transubstantiation, Devotion, and the Holy Blood in 16th-Century Poland

09:55 – 10:20 Agathe Bonnin (Cergy Paris Université / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Le Rouge et le Blanc. Pureté et sensualité du sang du Christ en peinture (Espagne, XVIIe s.)

10:20 – 10:45 Break

Moderator: Mathilde Marès

10:45 – 11:10 Alysée Le Druillenec (UCLouvain / Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Voir sans toucher. Claude Mellan, la Résurrection sans plaie et la revanche de l’image sur la preuve

11:10 – 11:35 Stéphane Cabrol (Montpellier III), Les ambivalences du signe. La visibilité du sang du Christ dans la spiritualité de Pierre de Bérulle

11:35 – 12:00 Rosanna Gangemi (ULB et Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), Boire et se laver avec le Sang de la Croix. Étude iconographique d’une transcendance immanente

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 15:00 Round table chaired by Pierre-Antoine Fabre

Session 2 – Testing the Image and Bloody Phenomena: Historical Analogies
Moderator: Marta Battisti (UCLouvain)

15:00 – 15:25 Manon Chaidron (UCLouvain), Les hosties poignardées de Bruxelles (1370). Image blessée et présence révélée

15:25 – 15:50 Sunmin Cha (Columbia University), Beyond the Blood. Eucharistic Symbolism and Artistic Identity in Hendrick Goltzius’s Man of Sorrows with a Chalice

15:50 – 16:15 Elise Poot (UCLouvain), Entre oppression et émancipation. Les représentations du Pressoir mystique dans la peinture de la Nouvelle-Espagne (XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles)

16:15 – 16:40 Discussion

16:40 Conclusion

If you are interested in attending, please contact Manon Chaidron (UCLouvain): <manon.chaidronuclouvain.be>.

To attend remotely, use these links:

Wednesday, December 3:
Colloque “Sanguis Christi” | Réunion-Joindre | Microsoft Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_NjIzZDY3YjctMThiMi00ZDlkLTk0MDUtN2E2ZTg3MDE4MTAz%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%227ab090d4-fa2e-4ecf-bc7c-4127b4d582ec%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a9e1312d-ab5e-4abf-8813-5f33f817dab2%22%7d

Thursday, December 4:
Colloque “Sanguis Christi” | Réunion-Joindre | Microsoft Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MTA1MWY2NzItNmE0ZC00MjUzLWEyNjEtY2M1Yzg5ZDVkZDQ3%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%227ab090d4-fa2e-4ecf-bc7c-4127b4d582ec%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a9e1312d-ab5e-4abf-8813-5f33f817dab2%22%7d

Friday, December 5:
Colloque “Sanguis Christi” | Réunion-Joindre | Microsoft Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MTc2NzQ2ZGUtODgwNy00OTAwLTg2OGEtYTZhMDAyODE2MTAx%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%227ab090d4-fa2e-4ecf-bc7c-4127b4d582ec%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a9e1312d-ab5e-4abf-8813-5f33f817dab2%22%7d