Meet Jeannette
Jeannette Alexis Martinez is an art historian and theologian based in Southern California. During her time as a Syracuse Florence Fellow, Jeannette's novel academic research delved into the visual tradition of Italian imagery of the Madonna of the Rosary. As she continues this research, she applies GIS technology in order to communicate her discoveries to digital audiences.
Now, as a dual PhD student at Claremont Graduate University, her current focus, equally distinctive, explores the Spanish colonial influences on the imagery of the Immaculate Conception in Nicaragua.
Routing the Rosary: Mapping Visual Tradition in Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings of the Madonna of the Rosary
In the late fifteenth century, the establishment of the early Confraternities of the Rosary, belonging to the Dominican Order of Preachers, coincided with the advent of printing. This development allowed confraternities to create printed manuals with illustrations, enabling both literate and illiterate individuals to learn how to pray the rosary.
Utilizing a geographic information system (GIS), users of Routing the Rosary are able to navigate through a map of some of the earliest confraternities, which first originated in France and Germany. As you explore, you will encounter illustrations, manuscripts, and printed materials produced by confraternities that proliferated the devotion across Europe. By 1521, confraternities in Italy were flourishing and producing their own manuals that maintained the same prayer practices and illustrations from the materials circulated by pre-existing confraternities. As the rosary gained popularity, patrons commissioning works of art began to request more frequently compositions of the Madonna of the Rosary.
Through GIS technology, the site uses geospatial data to explore the patterns, relationships, and geographic contexts of rosary iconography. Demonstrating the influence of rosary manuals on Italian compositions, Routing the Rosary first discusses the role of early Confraternities of the Rosary in promulgating the devotion through Rosary manuals, helping users understand the roots of this religious iconography. The website then invites users to explore a digital gallery featuring a captivating collection of sixteenth-century paintings on the Madonna of the Rosary.
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