Vanessa A Portugal

Vanessa A. Portugal is art historian specialised in art theory and on analyses the alchemical, magical, and
astrological uses of the image in the Early Modern world. I am also interested on the use of
astrology in medicine, the environment, and on the process and objects employed at
creating astrological images.
Her book “Imagenes astrológicas en la Nueva España (UCO-Press 2018)” explores the power
of the astrological images for political, meditative, divinatory, medical, and magical
purposes in New Spain from the 16th to the 18th century.
Her past research has examined the use of astrological and cosmological motives in diverse
art objects and practices between the Spanish Americas and Europe that potentiate
memory and change though meditation, game, and dance (‘“Voladores y jugadores”, 2022;
‘Simbolica Descriptio’, 2019; ‘Modelos de la imagen. El Mago del Tarot Visconti’, 2018).
Additionally, it has explored the use of astrological images derived from the European and
Indigenous antiquity in political negotiations in the Colonial Iberian Americas (‘Las
vestiduras de Apolo en la Nueva España’, 2016), as well as the potentialities of astrological
images for promoting the spiritual and physical wellbeing (‘Astros festivos. Imágenes
celestes en los arcos triunfales’, 2013).
Currently, she is working on her second book which delves into the scientific culture of 17 th c.
Western Mexico and its relationship with contemporary astrological debates between
science and belief.

Vanessa has carried out research stays at the Warburg Institute, the Pierpont-Morgan Library and Museum, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Kunsthistorisches Institute Max-Planck, and the Plantin-Moretus Library. Has held fellowships from the Institute of Advanced Studies at University College London, Durham Residential Research Library. She was Visiting Scholar in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University, and fellow at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, undertaking research on astrological images in the Early Modern Period.