Andrew Chen

Texas State University, Art and Design, Faculty Member

Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Villa I Tatti, Post-Doc

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I am broadly interested in the art and culture of the medieval and early modern periods. To date, much of my research has focused on questions of aesthetics, social function, and ritual use. I published my first book, on art and flagellation, in 2018. I have also written and co-written articles on painting, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and early writings on art.

I have an article forthcoming on a sixteenth-century response to Michelangelo's Last Judgment. I am currently working on a series of articles on allegory and other topics.

In 2020–21, I was CRIA Fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. Since August 2021, I have been an assistant professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University.

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Five invisible lines, before and after the Reformation

Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 2022

One of the principal claims that arose around the extraordinarily popular Dominican saint Catheri... more One of the principal claims that arose around the extraordinarily popular Dominican saint Catherine of Siena (1347-80) was that she had received the stigmata of Christ. Her stigmata were unlike those of St. Francis, however, in that they could not be seen by anyone but Catherine. Her confessor and biographer Raymond of Capua's description of her stigmatization begins as follows: "we saw her little body, which had been lying prostrate, gradually rise up until it was upright on its knees, her arms and hands stretched themselves out, and her face reddened; she remained in this position for a long time, perfectly stiff, with her eyes closed, and then we saw her suddenly fall, as though mortally wounded. A little later, her soul recovered its senses." 1 This is what bystanders could observe. In the dialogue that follows, Catherine reports what she experienced: "I saw the Lord fixed to the cross coming towards me in a great light, and such was the impulse of my soul to go and meet its Creator that it forced the body to rise up. Then from the scars of His most sacred wounds I saw five rays of blood coming down towards me, to my hands, my feet and my heart. Realizing what was to happen, I exclaimed, 'O Lord God, I beg you-do not let these scars show on the outside of my body!' As I said this, before the rays reached me their color changed from blood red to the colour of light, and in the form of pure light they arrived at the five points of my body, hands, feet and heart." "So then," I said, "no ray reached your right side?" "No," she replied, "it came straight to my left side, over my heart; because that line of light from Jesus's right side struck me directly, not aslant." 2

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