This talk examines the history of the most important relic in the Christian world: the holy sudarium. Known colloquially as “the Veronica,” the relic is the cloth that is believed to have been imbued with the likeness of Christ’s face when Saint Veronica wiped the sweat from his brow as he made his way, carrying the cross, to the crucifixion. Surveying first how the relic arrived in Rome at the basilica of St. Peter, Katherine L. Jansen will demonstrate that attention to one holy object over a long period can reveal patterns of religious practice, papal ceremony and politics, and change over time in the eternal city.

This talk is part of the Denbo Center for Humanities & the Arts' 2024-25 Distiguished Lecture Series.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Katherine L. Jansen is a historian of the later Middle Ages.  She is the author of the award-winning book, The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) and Peace and Penance in late Medieval Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).  She has also published three co-edited volumes:  Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009); Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Preaching, 1200–1500 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010); and Center and Periphery: Essays on Power in the Middle Ages in Honor of William Chester Jordan (Leiden: Brill, 2013).    Professor Jansen has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, Villa I Tatti (The Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, among others. She has taught at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC since 1995 and has been Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University.  She was elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2020. She is currently Editor of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.  Her current book project is entitled, The Relics of Rome to which this lecture, “The Veil of Veronica in Premodern Rome” contributes.

Katherine Jansen was invited to campus by Gina Di Salvo (Theatre; Marco Institute). Her visit is co-sponsored by the Marco Institute for Medieval & Renaissance Studies.