Landscapes of St. Gregory: Topography and Sanctity in Medieval Italy

Alison Locke Perchuk gives a work-in-progress presentation of an interdisciplinary study of the art, architecture, and landscapes of Benedictine monasteries in central Italy, VI–XII c., including Montecassino, Sacro Speco at Subiaco, and Sant’Eutizio at Norcia, largely destroyed by earthquakes in 2016–17. The project’s methodological contribution is to bring ecocriticism into dialogue with art history, positioning landscape as protagonist in the construction of sanctity in the medieval Latin West and examining the ways in which monastic art and architecture established, communicated, and preserved sacred topographies.

Professor Perchuk teaches at California State University Channel Islands in the Department of Art. She is a specialist in the art and architecture of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean basin. She has written and spoken on such topics as tenth-century Iberian manuscript illumination, eleventh-century Byzantine bronzes, and twelfth-century architecture and wall painting near Rome. She holds a BA in Art History from Williams College, an MA in Medieval Studies from the Catholic University of America, and a PhD in Art History from Yale University. Prior to her appointment at CSU Channel Islands, she taught at the University of California, Riverside, and Occidental College. She currently serves as the treasurer of the Italian Art Society.

Funding for CMRS Roundtables is provided by the Armand Hammer Endowment for the UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies.