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Marsha Libina

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Marsha Libina

Associate Professor of Art History

  • Department: Art History and Fine Arts
  • Office: 
    M-003
  • Office Hours: 
    By appointment

Professor Libina specializes in the art of Renaissance Italy, with a focus on artistic responses to the religious controversies of the Catholic Reformation. She is particularly interested in the artistic image as an object of visual attention and devotional engagement. Her work equally deals with questions of materiality and mediality in art 鈥� that is, with the ways images contend with their status as material fictions but also vehicles of knowledge in the early modern period. Libina has published on the devotional painting of Sebastiano del Piombo, revealing the Venetian artist's deep commitment to thinking through the figuration of the divine and the problematic of human mediation of divine truths within early Catholic reform. Libina has also published on works made for artists' academies in Florence and Rome after the Council of Trent as part of her second project, "The Artist as Visionary and the Authority of Pictorial Invention." The project investigates the intersection of discourses on the artist鈥檚 imagination and the dangers of visionary experience in early modern academies of art. In particular, it looks at reform-minded thinkers鈥� attempts to reign in the license of imaginative vision and the rise of works that, despite these attempts, lay claim to the visionary power of the artist.



Education/Degrees

  • Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
    Hon. B.Sc., University of Toronto

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

  • 鈥淰isions in Stone: Illusion, Animation and the Devotional Gaze in the Art of Northern Italy.鈥澛�Renaissance Studies,聽online Early View (2021): 1-30.聽
  • 鈥淧icturing Time and Eternity in Sebastiano del Piombo鈥檚 Viterbo Piet脿.鈥� The Sixteenth Century Journal 51, no.2 (2020): 385-418.聽
  • 鈥淒ivine Visions: Image-Making and Imagination in Pictures of St. Luke Painting the Virgin.鈥� Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut) 61, no.3 (2019): 235-263.
  • 鈥溾�楩alse Prophecies,鈥� Scripture, and the Crisis of Mediation in Early Modern Rome: Sebastiano del Piombo鈥檚 Borgherini Chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio.鈥� I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 21, no.1 (2018): 67-104.

Books

  • Sebastiano del Piombo and the Sacred Image: Mediating the Divine in the Age of Reform.聽Turnhout: Brepols, 2022.

Book Reviews

  • 鈥淩eview of Robert Williams. Raphael and the Redefinition of Art in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.鈥� Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et R茅forme 42, no.1 (2019): 424-27.

Conferences & Lectures

Panels Organized

  • 2022. 鈥淏odily Relics and Anatomies of the Sacred.鈥� Renaissance Society of America (RSA), Dublin. March 30-April 2, 2022.
  • 2021.聽鈥淚llusion and Early Modern Simulacra,鈥� Renaissance Society of America (RSA), Virtual. April 13-22, 2021. Co-organized with Grace Harpster.
  • 2019. 鈥淭he Artist鈥檚 Faculties and the Artistic Process,鈥� Renaissance Society of America (RSA), Toronto. March 17-19, 2019. Co-organized with Colin Murray.
  • 2018. 鈥淰isions and the Reliability of Sight, 1500-1700,鈥� Renaissance Society of America (RSA), New Orleans. March 22-24, 2018. Co-organized with Alexandra Letvin.
  • 2017. Workshop. 鈥淓arly Modern Vision: The Imagination and the Religious Image,鈥� Lichtenberg Kolleg Institute for Advanced Study, University of G枚ttingen. November 6-7, 2017.

Panels Chaired

  • 2019. The Early Modern Interdisciplinary Graduate Forum, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto. January 15, 2019.

Papers Presented

  • 2022. 鈥淪ebastiano del Piombo and the Materiality of the Sacred,鈥� Renaissance Society of America (RSA), Dublin. March 30-April 2, 2022.
  • 2021. 鈥淰isions in Stone: Illusion and the Devotional Gaze in Borromeo鈥檚 Sacred Images,鈥� Renaissance Society of America (RSA), Virtual. April 20, 2021.
  • 2020. 鈥淰isions in Stone and the Devotional Gaze in Borromeo鈥檚 Sacred Images,鈥� Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC), Baltimore. October 29-November 1, 2020 (conference cancelled).
  • 2019. 鈥淎rtists鈥� Academies and the Ideation of 鈥楧ivine Things鈥� in the Age of Reform,鈥� Renaissance Society of America (RSA), Toronto. March 17-19, 2019.
  • 2019. 鈥溾�楾he Flux and Fog of Matter鈥�: Materiality and the Senses in Sebastiano del Piombo鈥檚 Devotional Painting,鈥� Fellows Seminar Series, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto. February 8, 2019.
  • 2018. 鈥淭he Illusion of Vision: Artistic Fictions and Religious Experience,鈥� The Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC), University of Waterloo. October 25-28, 2018.
  • 2018. 鈥淭he Artist as Visionary and the Legend of St. Luke Painting the Virgin,鈥� The Renaissance Society of America (RSA), New Orleans. March 22-24, 2018.
  • 2017. 鈥淒ivine Visions: Image-Making and Imagination in Early Modern Academies of Art,鈥� Lichtenberg-Kolleg Institute for Advanced Study, University of G枚ttingen. November 15, 2017.
  • 2017. 鈥淰ision and the Mediality of Art in Pictures of St. Luke Painting the Virgin.鈥� Medialit盲t und Materialit盲t 鈥済ro脽er Narrative鈥�: Religi枚se (Re-)Formationen, Universit盲t Salzburg, Krems on der Donau. September 27-29, 2017.聽
  • 2016. 鈥溾�楩alse Prophecies鈥�: Scripture and the Crisis of Mediation in Early Modern Rome.鈥� The Renaissance Society of America (RSA), Boston. March 31-April 2, 2016.聽
  • 2014. 鈥淢editation on Motion and Stillness in Sebastiano del Piombo鈥檚 Viterbo Piet脿.鈥� The Renaissance Society of America (RSA), New York. March 27-29, 2014.

Research Areas

  • Devotional art and religious reform
  • Vision and imagination
  • Discourses on idolatry
  • Artists' academies
  • Artistic collaboration
  • Relationship between theory and practice

Curriculum Vitae