21 May 2025 University of Fribourg 09:30-18:30 MIS04 4112

The international workshop “Verbal Evocations of Site-Bound Holiness” is the first scientific event organized by the Chair of Medieval Art at the University of Fribourg within the framework of the SNSF Advanced Grant Project Holy Networks. Locating, Shaping, and Experiencing Palestinian Loca Sancta (1187–1851), coordinated by Prof. Michele Bacci. It sets out to open a conversation about on the specifically verbal dimensions of the approximately one thousand texts gathered within the project, and to analyse the tension between the uniqueness of each pilgrim’s experience and the ways in which it was conveyed through specific, and often stereotyped, linguistic, literary, and visual codes. The workshop will gather scholars with expertise in the analysis of premodern Jerusalem pilgrimage narratives to reflect on how texts navigate the line between personal experience and inherited storytelling patterns.