Immagini mariane in viaggio. La Madonna di Trapani tra Sicilia Spagnola, Cattolicesimo globale e aspirazioni imperiali

Nora Guggenbühler

doi:10.6092/issn.2240-7251/18929

Authors

Nora Guggenbühler Universität Zürich
Nora Guggenbühler is a PhD student in art history at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In March 2020, she secured a four-year research grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF for her dissertation project titled Traveling Mary: Multiplication and Dissemination of Miraculous Images of Mary in the Hispanic World. Her research focuses on the circulation of copies of miraculous images of the Virgin Mary throughout the Spanish Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, emphasizing their crucial role in expanding and consolidating networks of Marian cult sites across the early modern Catholic world. From October 2021 to September 2022, Nora served as a visiting scholar at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Luisa Elena Alcalá. Prior to this, she spent two years as a Predoctoral Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome (2020-2022) and undertook a three-month residency at the Istituto Svizzero in Palermo during the fall of 2020. She co-organized the international conference Art Across the Iberian World. Connecting Spanish Italy and Latin America (2022, with Joris van Gastel) and is co-editing the forthcoming related volume.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2240-7251/18929

Keywords:

Miraculous Images, Madonna di Trapani, Sicily, Spanish Empire, Global Catholicism

Abstract

In the twelfth century, a marble statue of the Virgin Mary miraculously arrived in the Sicilian harbor town of Trapani, gaining reverence across the Catholic world. The ensuing pilgrimage to the statue led to the widespread distribution of small alabaster replicas of the venerated Madonna. This article examines the mythical and factual trajectories of the Madonna di Trapani and her copies throughout the Mediterranean. This paper outlines the strategic fusion of legendary narratives and tangible mobility employed by viceroys, religious orders, and travelers to expand and consolidate the influence of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown during the Counter-Reformation.