Caterina Percoto, auteure de nouvelles champêtres, est née et a passé l'essentiel de sa vie à San Lorenzo di Soleschiano, village du Frioul, à un moment crucial de l'histoire de l'Italie, le Risorgimento, qui aboutit à l'unification italienne. L'objet de cette thèse est de faire découvrir, à travers sa biographie et son oeuvre, cette écrivaine qui reste encore largement méconnue en dehors de sa région d'origine, en la replaçant en particulier dans le contexte historique du Risorgimento. Dans une première partie, les éléments proposés pour une biographie de Caterina Percoto permettent d'éclairer sa personnalité et son oeuvre. Il s'agit en particulier de montrer la tension constante entre les aspirations de cette femme au tempérament rebelle et les contraintes sociales, familiales et matérielles qui s'y opposent. La prise de conscience précoce de la condition subalterne de la femme, la nécessité de vivre à la campagne et de gérer la propriété agricole familiale, la rencontre avec les milieux libéraux et patriotes du Royaume de Lombardie-Vénétie, sont autant d'éléments qui trouvent une résonance dans son oeuvre. Dans une deuxième partie, l'étude des nouvelles italiennes de Caterina Percoto, met en évidence l'attention portée aux problématiques de son époque et l'engagement de l'écrivaine dans l'élaboration d'une nouvelle société italienne. Son oeuvre reflète en effet sa prise de position pour une réforme sociale qui conduise à une société plus juste et solidaire, intégrant dignement tous ses membres, femmes et paysans inclus, ainsi que sa dénonciation de la domination autrichienne dans la Péninsule et sa revendication patriotique d'un État italien indépendant et unitaire. / Caterina Percoto, writer of countryside short stories, was born and spent most of her life in San Lorenzo di Soleschiano, a village of Frioul, at an essential moment in the history of Italy, the Risorgimento, which resulted in the Italian unification. The purpose of this thesis is, through her biography and works, to make discover this writer who remains largely unknown out of her region of origin, notably with placing her back in the historical context of the Risorgimento. First, the elements proposed for Caterina Percoto's biography enable us to highlight her personality and works. The purpose is more specifically to show the constant tension between the aspirations of this reckless woman and the social, family, and material constraints which stand in opposition. The early awareness of the inferior position of women, the necessity to live in the countryside and manage the family farm, her meeting with the liberal and patriotic circles of the Lonbardy-Venetia Kingdom, all these elements find an echo in her works. Second, studying Caterina Percoto's Italian short stories draws attention to the great issues of her time and the commitment of this writer in creating a new Italian society. Indeed her works reveal her engagement in favour of a social reform which would end up in a society with more justice and solidarity, a society where all members, peasants and women included, would stand together with dignity. But they also illustrate her denouncing of Austrian dominion over the Peninsula and her patriotic claim for an independent and united Italian state.

This thesis analyses four European writers, whose common denominator is that they have moved to Sweden from other European countries and chosen to write in Swedish: Caterina Pascual Söderbaum, Theodor Kallifatides, Gabriela Melinescu and Sigrid Combüchen. Focus lies on novels published by the authors in the 21st century. The thesis builds upon theories on memory by Pierre Nora and on imagined communities by Benedict Anderson, Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand. In Imagined Communities, Anderson shows the effects of the emerging nation states on the modern novel in the 19th century. The hypothesis of this study is that the emergence of the European Union and the resulting European movement will affect narratives in a similar way, but on a European rather than national level. The main finding seems to confirm this, showing that an imagined European community takes shape in the studied novels, surpassing that of the nation state’s borders.  All writers focus on memories, but in two different ways: Kallifatides and Melinescu depict long memories, starting in ancient times and with a positive view on remembrance as a focus on what is in common for Europeans. Pascual Söderbaum and Combüchen, on the other hand, depict memories from the dark 20th century and the importance of forgetting and moving on in order to give future generations freedom. In most novels, however, there are examples of lieux de mémoire (sites of memory), with Nora’s terminology, expanding towards a common European identity, in spite of the plethora of myths and languages. / Den här uppsatsen analyserar fyra europeiska författare vars gemensamma nämnare är att de har flyttat till Sverige från andra europeiska länder och valt att skriva på svenska: Caterina Pascual Söderbaum, Theodor Kallifatides, Gabriela Melinescu och Sigrid Combüchen. I fokus är romaner som givits ut av författarna under 2000-talet. Uppsatsen bygger på teorier om minne av Pierre Nora och föreställda gemenskaper av Benedict Anderson, Chiara Bottici och Benoît Challand. I Imagined Communities visar Anderson vilken påverkan de framväxande nationalstaterna hade på den moderna romanen under artonhundratalet. Den här uppsatsens hypotes är att framväxten av EU och den europeiska rörlighet som EU resulterat i påverkar narrativen på ett liknande sätt, men på en europeisk snarare än nationell nivå. De viktigaste resultaten tycks i huvudsak bekräfta denna hypotes, och visar på hur en föreställd europeisk gemenskap tar form i de studerade romanerna, en gemenskap som överskrider nationalstatens gränser. Samtliga författare fokuserar på minnen, men på två vitt skilda sätt: Kallifatides och Melinescu skildrar långa minnen med början i antiken och en positiv syn på hågkomst som det som förenar européer. Pascual Söderbaum och Combüchen, å andra sidan, skildrar minnen av det mörka nittonhundratalet och vikten av att glömma bort och gå vidare för att ge framtida generationer frihet. I de flesta romaner finns det dock exempel på lieux de mémoire (minnesplatser), med Noras terminologi, som vidgar sig mot en gemensam europeisk identitet, trots den stora mångfalden av myter och språk.

My dissertation inserts the incorruptible body into the discussion of image devotion and relic veneration that followed the Council of Trent’s (1545-1563) decrees concerning the use of images, which affirmed Thomas Aquinas’s position that worship is passed from representation to archetype. This is addressed in terms of the image and the relic within the same sacred space, primarily in the context of the chapels of S. Caterina de’ Vigri (1413-1463; canonized 1712) in Bologna and S. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (1566-1607; canonized 1669) in Florence, where there were not only man-made representations of the saint, but also the whole and entire body of the saint herself. Bringing together an array of visual and textual materials including such objects as the presentation of the preserved body, hagiographies, altarpieces, votive images, and popular prints, I analyze the powerful physical presence (praesentia) of the incorruptible body in relation to the saint’s somatic miracles, the visual commemoration of those miracles at the shrine, and the ultimate transportation of this means of access to the divine when portable images moved away from the body. I analyze how and to what extent the presence of the saint was asserted through the intact corpse and through images of the relic body. By focusing on both the presentation of the incorruptible corpse itself and the visual and written representation of the female relic body in a variety of media, this study will analyze the reception of the powerful physical presence of the holy incorruptible body and its representations. I argue that praesentia is signified not only through the display of the relic body, but also through a synthesized emphasis on the incorruptible corpse as prototype, relic, and image.

The focus of this dissertation is the Franciscan church of Santa Caterina (ca.1385-1391) at Galatina in the Salento, an area of Italy characterised by the presence of Greek language and/or rite communities. Scholars have described it as an emblematically 'Latin' church, decorated with 'Giottesque' frescoes, commissioned by a ruthless and ambitious signore, built with the papacy's approval, donated to the Franciscan order and founded with the aim of providing mass in Latin for those who did not speak Greek. This dissertation argues that that view needs to be considerably nuanced, if only because the relationship between the Graeci and the Latini in late-medieval Salento is much more complex than often acknowledged. I place Santa Caterina in its context, exploring how the frescoes themselves are evidence for transculturation and how the experience of both communities must be re-centred in order to fully understand the creation and reception of the fresco programme. Before doing this, however, this PhD focuses on the history of the foundation by restoring agency to two of the three main patrons: Raimondello del Balzo Orsini (d.1406) and his wife Maria d'Enghien (d.1446). I argue that the foundation of Santa Caterina was the first sign of Raimondello's interest in south-eastern Italy, which would allow him to become the first person outside of the royal family to be crowned Prince of Taranto in 1399. I explore the possibility the church may have been built ad instar of St Catherine's on Mt Sinai, and how this may in turn explain some of its unusual architectural features. This dissertation then takes on the second phase of the church's history, during which Maria, now Queen of Naples, commissioned the extensive mural decoration. I date the fresco decoration ca.1415-23/5, discuss in detail their iconography, reconstruct lost scenes, and present - for the first time - a holistic interpretation of the mural programme.

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A deep visual analysis of Ludovico Carracci’s 1588 Madonna and Child, Angels, and Saints Francis, Dominic, Mary Magdalene and the Donor Cecilia Bargellini Boncompagni with an emphasis on the role of the patron, the significance of the locality, and the visual semiotics of the Virgin Mary’s gaze in prompting conversion in the repentant prostitutes of the Carmelite convertite convent associated with Ss. Filippo and Giacomo in Bologna, Italy. Including a commentary on contemporary social expectations of modest behavior and the painting’s deliberate incorporation of inappropriate female behavior towards a religious purpose. A discussion of uniquely Carmelite iconography, the use of Ignatian mental prayer in convents, and self-determination in imagery by a Bolognese aristocratic woman.