Rethinking Sacred Images as the Book of the Illiterate: An Early Modern, Global, and Auditory Perspective

Programme

4 June 2026

09.45 Welcome with coffee

10.15 Welcome address
Cécile Evers | Director of the Academia Belgica

Introduction
Marta Battisti | UCLouvain & Ralph Dekoninck | UCLouvain

10.45 Keynote lecture
Wietse de Boer | Miami University
Gregory the Great, the Image, and Embodied Experience: From Religious Controversy to Missionary Encounter

12.00 Lunch break

13.30 Seeing, Hearing, Acting
Chair: Marta Battisti | UCLouvain

Tin Cugelj | University of Nottingham, Icons in Transit, Voices in Motion: Auditory Devotion and the Portable Image aboard Venetian Pilgrim Ships (c. 1450–1650)

Anne Lepoittevin | Sorbonne Université, “Un’arte che non solo dilettava, ma muovendo doceva.” The Gospel of Varallo at the Crossroads of the Senses

Daniele V. Filippi | Università di Torino, Sound Unveiling the Image: Interaction with the Visual in Early Modern Catholic Music

15.30 Coffee break

16.00 Textual and Vocal Resonances
Chair: Ralph Dekoninck | UCLouvain

Steven Stowell | Concordia University, The Eye of the Mind and the Voice of the Heart: Leandro Alberti’s History of the Madonna of San Luca

Thor-Oona Pignarre-Altermatt | UCLouvain, Predicare in carta: Image, Text, and Voice in Sixteenth-Century Capuchin Guides to Prayer

Marco Faini | University at Buffalo – SUNY, Luca Pinelli’s “libretti d’imagini”: Reading, Meditation, Contemplation, and Affectivity

5 June 2026

09.30 Embodied Perception
Chair: Steven Stowell | Concordia University

Graylin Harrison | Dumbarton Oaks, The Underworld Embodied: Images and the Multisensory Volcanic Landscape

Célia Zuber | Université de Lausanne, The Liber Idiotarum Embodied: Saint Gregory as a Reflexive Figure in Post-Tridentine Visual Culture

10.45 Coffee break

11.00 Departure to Santo Stefano Rotondo (Transportation organised for speakers only)

11.30 Visit of Santo Stefano Rotondo

Marta Battisti | UCLouvain, Space, Bodies, and Sounds in Santo Stefano Rotondo (c. 1583)

12.30 Return to the Academia Belgica (Transportation organised for speakers only)

13.00 Lunch break

14.30 Sounds of Evangelization
Chair: Wietse de Boer | Miami University

Maria Vittoria Spissu | Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, “Talking Images” from the Ibero-American Viceroyalties. A Paradox of Enlivening and Silencing

Alison Fleming | Winston-Salem State University, Transcending the Text: Pictorial Communication in the Missionary Field

15.45 Coffee break

16.15 Sonic Missionary Environments
Chair: Daniele V. Filippi | Università di Torino

Jorge Oliaga Vázquez | Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, What Does the Open Chapel Sound Like? Word, Image, and Sound in the Augustinian Convents of New Spain during the 16th century

Elena Amerio | Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Juli as a Multisensory Mission: Art, Devotion, and Jesuit Evangelization on Lake Titicaca

17.30 Closing remarks

The conference will be held in person. Those wishing to attend are kindly invited to register via the following link: https://forms.gle/iudwPwJEvJHp9eZN7

Deadline for registration: 20 May 2026
Contact: marta.battistiuclouvain.be

Conference organisers: Marta Battisti (UCLouvain) & Ralph Dekoninck (UCLouvain)

Supported by: Research Project AurArt, Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions, Grant Agreement No. 101150579, UCLouvain | INCAL | GEMCA & Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Special Project Grant, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.