Erin Giffin
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History
A specialist of global early modern art history, Erin Giffin explores cross-cultural relations through the production of sculpture, architecture, print media and ephemera in her research. Her classes address information dissemination and copying across Catholic communities, as well as trends in early modern identity politics, ambassadorial gifts, and immersive religious spaces. An Italian art specialist by training, Giffin focuses on how Italians learned about, interacted with, and responded to other cultures. Her first monograph, Early Modern Replicas of the Holy House of Loreto: Translating Space (Routledge, 2025), highlights replicas of the Holy House of the Virgin Mary at Loreto, Italy, which was recreated extensively across the Catholic world. Giffin previously taught at Skidmore College (2022-2024); was a fellow of I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy (2021-2022); and a postdoc at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany (2017-2021).
Research Interests
Early Modern art (Renaissance/Baroque), print media, sculpture, architecture, immersive space, materiality/multimedia, information dissemination, cross-cultural contact (ambassadorial, missionary), semiotics, replication/copying
Distinctions
- Faculty Research Associate, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), Rome, Italy (January 2025)
- Renaissance Society of America Virginia Fox Stern Center Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (22 May-16 June, 2023)
- Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (KHI) funding for the second meeting of The Itinerant Shrine conference, in anticipation of a publication (forthcoming), between the KHI in Florence, and Loreto, Italy (15-19 May, 2023)
- Clive’s Conference Funding for the conference: The Itinerant Shrine: Art, History and the Multiple Geographies of the Holy House of Loreto, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (30 June-1 July, 2022)
- Fritz Thyssen Foundation funding award for the workshop: “Message, Messenger, or False Friend? Early Modern Print as Intermediary” (28-29 June, 2019)
- DAAD-Waseda Partnership funding grant for the workshop: “Early Modern Sacred Images in Japan and Europe: Contact, Comparison, Conflict” (21-25 October and 18-23 November, 2019)
- Dean’s Medal, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington (2017)
Selected Publications
- Erin Giffin, Early Modern Replicas of the Santa Casa di Loreto: Translating Space (New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2025)
- Erin Giffin, “A Mobile Shrine: The Global Cult of the Santa Casa,” co-authored with Antongiulio Sorgini, in The Routledge Companion to Global Renaissance Art, edited by S. J. Campbell and S. Porras, 640-656 (New York: Routledge, 2024).
- Erin Giffin, “The Empress María and the Casita de Nazaret: A Reconstructive History,” AGENART: La agencia artística de las mujeres de la Casa de Austria, 1532-1700, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (published 7 September 2023: )
- Erin Giffin, “Pietro Paolo Drei’s Flower Mosaics Revealed in Print,” Print Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2021): 17-29.
- Erin Giffin, “Giovanni Battista Braccelli’s Etched Devotions before the Vatican Bronze Saint Peter,” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, journal of Harvard University Center Villa i Tatti, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2020): 341-374.
- Erin Giffin, “The Multiple Cultural Identities Traversed in Anna Sztemberk’s Paper Votives,” in Embodied Movement: Counter-Reformation Sanctity in Global and Material Perspectives, edited by R. S. Noyes (New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2024).
- Erin Giffin, “Exceeding Expectations: Antonio Begarelli, his Female Patrons, and the Misunderstood Materialities of White Terracotta,” in Modelled, Fired, Transformed: Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture 1400-1600, edited by Z. Sarnecka and A. Dziki, pp. 238-259 (London: Routledge, 2023).
- Erin Giffin, “Translatio in stampa: Sisto V e l’ampia diffusione della Santa Casa di Loreto,” in Su ali di carta. Le traslazioni della Santa Casa a stampa in età sistina, exhibition catalogue, edited by V. Punzi, pp. 5-9 (Loreto: Museo Pontificio Santa Casa, 2022).
- Erin Giffin, “The Tradition of Change in Copies of the Santa Casa di Loreto: The Case of San Clemente in Venice,” in Sacred Images and Normativity: Contested Forms in Early Modern Art, edited by C. Franceschini, pp. 188-203 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021).
- Erin Giffin, “Conflicting Sources for 3D Replicas: Adam Philippon’s Santa Casa of Loreto,” online article published on the Thinking 3D Forum website, a research initiative between the University of St Andrews, Magdalen College, and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford (published 20 July 2019: )
- Erin Giffin, “Détruire, reconstruire, redéfinir: la fragmentation volontaire de la Santa Casa de Loreto et ses altérations répliquées,” Perspective : actualité en histoire de l'art, journal of the INHA, themed publication: Détruire. Vol. 2 (2018): 209-217.
Professional Affiliations
College Art Association (CAA)
Renaissance Society of America (RSA)
Sixteenth-Century Society (SCS)
Association of Print Scholars (APS)
Italian Art Society (IAS)
Medici Archives Project (MAP)
Appointed to the Faculty
2024Educational Background
Ph.D., University of Washington, Seattle
M.A., University of Washington, Seattle
B.A., Smith College
