1 August 2007
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Dr Marshall contends that portryals of St Roch were positive coping mechanisms for dealing with the plague. |
According to popular legend, St Roch ministered to the sick and performed miraculous cures for the victims of bubonic plague in 14th century Europe.
With the help of a University research and development grant, art historian Louise Marshall has been visiting Northern Italy to document the surviving images of this enigmatic saint.
Paintings of St Roch were used in churches in many North Italian villages in an attempt to ward off the impending pandemic.
Dr Marshall, who has spent the past 30 years studying Italian Renaissance paintings, contends that portrayals of St Roch were positive coping mechanisms for dealing with the plague.
"Traditionally, academics thought that something as catastrophic as the plague must have had devastating psychological effects on these people," she says. "But by investing faith in these saints, they learnt to cope with the crisis and really did believe that the saints would intercede and save them."
Dr Marshall and her colleague, Sydney graduate student Kate Fletcher, were stunned by the reception they received in Italy.
In the town of Voghera, where locals believe St Roch's body was originally held before being sold to the Venetians in the fifteenth century, Marshall and Fletcher were introduced as "a delegation of Australian scholars." They were invited to press conferences and interviews, and even found themselves in a variety of local, regional and even national newspapers.
"It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. We weren't in big cities like Venice or Rome or Milan. We travelled to small villages where people have a deep sense of local history," Dr Marshall said.
"On a Sunday, we travelled to a remote village to look at a chapel that had been closed to the public for years. The deputy mayor greeted us there, took us on a guided tour of the chapel, and told us the entire history of the town. When we told them we were hungry and needed to get back to our hotel, they protested and took us to the most wonderful restaurant."
For Dr Marshall, the trip was a great success. In between guided tours and culinary delights, she documented many images of St. Roch and with the help of local people discovered new images.
Her work is unique amongst Renaissance scholars for focusing on a series of little-known artists working in isolated areas.
"Everyone wants to work on Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, but it's exciting to study local artists who all depict a different image of the same saint. I find it fascinating to examine how these untrained artists, with very few resources, used art to deal with this overwhelming tragedy."
Dr Marshall's work will appear in the Italian scholarly journal Vita Sancti Rochi later this year.
Contact: Claudia Liu
Phone: 02 9351 3191