Biography

Marta Battisti is an art historian interested in the interplay between the senses, particularly hearing, and early modern sacred art. She received her PhD from the University of Grenoble (2022), where she subsequently worked as a teaching and research assistant. Her most recent publications include the co-edited special issue Picturing the Senses: Perceiving, Knowing, and Representing Sensory Experiences from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (2023), while a forthcoming book focuses on the figures and meanings of listening in early modern Italian religious painting.

Project Summary

“Are there paintings for the ears in this world, and do ears perceive colors?” For the Jesuit Louis Richeome, the answer is yes; preaching and reading serve as paintings that engage the sense of hearing, using words as colors to represent the works of God. In response to the Reformation, Catholics sought to justify sacred images not only through the traditional Gregorian definition of painting as the “book of the illiterate” (liber idiotae) but also as a “universal language” (lingua universalis). The idea that images speak reflected a way of perceiving images shaped by the constant interaction of auditory and visual sensations. This research explores how sound and hearing participated in the affective reception of devotional artworks in post-Tridentine Italy (c. 1530-1650), drawing on treatises on image theory, preaching techniques, and prayer manuals. By attempting to define the concept of “acoustic agency,” the aim is to contribute to the ongoing investigation into the sensory agency of sacred art, while providing a fresh perspective on the relationship between visual art and auditory sensations during the early modern period.