Lorenzo Gatta receives the Prize for the Promotion of Research in Art History 2024

Lorenzo Gatta, a post-doctoral researcher at the Academy of Architecture of Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), completed his doctorate in January 2024 with a project co-supervised by the Academy of Architecture and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. He has been honoured with the Prize for the Promotion of Research in Art History 2024 for his essay "The Ecology of Sin: The Decay of the Confessionals in the Jesuit Church of Leuven, 1601-1773".

The award was conferred by the Swiss Association of Art Historians (ASSSA, VKKS, ASHHA), which, since 2005, has been awarding prizes to master's and doctoral students enrolled at a Swiss university for the best essays and theses on art history relating to the period from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age. Lorenzo Gatta's essay "The Ecology of Sin: The Decay of the Confessionals in the Jesuit Church of Leuven, 1601-1773", was awarded in the Senior category (dedicated to doctoral students) for "the originality of the topic, the interdisciplinary methodology, and the linguistic precision in the argumentation". The analysis focuses on eight wooden confessionals made by anonymous sculptors in the first half of the 18th century for the Jesuit church in Leuven (Belgium). Through an ecological perspective, Lorenzo Gatta examines how the physical decay of these objects of ceremonial purification - caused by non-human agents such as humidity and moths - has historically been perceived as a manifestation of spiritual corruption. This work stems from a chapter of his doctoral thesis, Jesuit Confessionals in the Early Modern Southern Netherlands: Design, Space, Materiality, which explores the intersections of space, materiality and rituality in confessionals in the Southern Netherlands during the early modern age (1546-1773).

"I am thrilled to receive this prize," said Lorenzo Gatta, who will undertake a post-doctoral research project at the Institute of Advanced Studies (University College London) starting February 2025. "An award that I see not so much as a personal achievement but more as recognition for the entire community of the Institute for the History and Theory of Art and Architecture (ISA). I would like to dedicate it to all my colleagues who have accompanied me throughout these years at the Academy, first as an architecture student and then as a PhD student. I especially want to acknowledge Professor Carla Mazzarelli, Professor Daniela Mondini, and Professor Christoph Frank for their unwavering support. Without them, my academic career would not have been as fulfilling".

The award ceremony will be held on 11 April 2025 at the Swiss Colloquium for Young Art Historians at the University of Neuchâtel.