Date: Tuesday 24 November 2026
Time: 14.00 to 15.00
Location: Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub, TCD.
Seminar Title: ‘Performing Veronica: Image, Ritual, and Sacred Authority in Early Modern Spain’.
Speaker: Professor Mary B. Quinn (University of New Mexico, USA)
Abstract
The Veronica occupies an unusual place in the history of Christian images. Said to preserve the face of Christ through direct contact rather than artistic creation, it could be understood simultaneously as image, icon, relic, and acheiropoietic object. Yet in the early modern period, neither the status of the image nor the tradition surrounding it was fully settled. This talk explores that instability in early modern Spain, arguing that the Veronica was not simply an object to be viewed or venerated, but one whose meaning and authority were continually produced via acts of participation and performance. Through theatrical spectatorship, artistic representation, ritual, and local devotional practice, viewers and communities participated in performing the Veronica into being. Examining works by Juan del Encina and Francisco de Zurbarán alongside the cult of the Santa Faz in Alicante, I show how these practices helped transform an unstable image tradition into an authoritative sacred object.
Speaker Bio
Mary Quinn is Professor of Spanish at the University of New Mexico, where she specializes in the literature and culture of early modern Spain. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach, moving across literature, music, visual culture, performance, and sensory history. She has authored three books: Don Quixote: Wandering, Misreading, and the Creation of the Modern Novel (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press); Sense and Spectacle in the Age of Philip IV: Performing Empire in Word, Music, and Image (Routledge, 2024); and The Moor and the Novel: Narrating Absence in Early Modern Spain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
For further information on this seminar please email Dr James Hanrahan at HANRAHAJ@tcd.ie.