Louisa McKenzie (SAS) - 2020-21 Students
louisa.mckenzie@postgrad.sas.ac.uk

Waxing devotion: the economic and devotional lifecycles of wax ex-votos in Florence 1300-1500

This project examines the production, acquisition, ownership and deployment of wax ex-votos in Florence 1300-1500 to explore the meanings, functions and visual evolution of these everyday devotional objects. It offers a broad social perspective, being concerned not only with the highest end of the wax ex-voto market, but with investigating wax ex-votos deployed across different social classes. More widely, the project aims to contribute to our understanding of the ex-voto as a work of art, as well as fourteenth and fifteenth century conceptions of the visual representation of the individual and the visualisation of personhood.

Primary supervisor: Dr Rembrandt Duits, SAS
Secondary supervisor: Prof. Michelle O’ Malley, SAS