The Team
Elizabeth Lastra, the PI of the project, is an Assistant Professor at Vassar College, where she teaches courses on the arts of medieval Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world. Her research focuses on northern Spanish art and society in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, addressing questions of urbanization, pilgrimage, and the dynamics of socially and religiously pluralistic communities. She previously held a position as Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong.
She has published articles in Gesta, Word & Image, and Studies in Iconography and is currently working on a book, Art and Authority in Medieval Spain: The Story of Carrión, which explores the urbanization and artistic production of Carrión de los Condes, a prominent medieval city along the pilgrimage the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Liz employs digital technologies to expand the means by which art objects and monuments are studied and presented. The project RomanesqueSpain provides virtual access to Spanish medieval sites through three-dimensional modeling and gigapixel photography.
Liz received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Her interests in Carrión began as a first-year doctoral student when she completed her own Camino, traversing the pilgrimage route from Saint-Jean-Pied-du-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees to St. James’s shrine at Compostela. Her research has been supported by several generous fellowships, including a Swarzenski Fellowship in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Fulbright and Casa de Velázquez fellowships in Madrid.
Questions and comments are welcome. Please write to elastra@vassar.edu.
Zoilo Perrino is from Carrión de los Condes (Palencia), a little historical city in the middle of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Although he studied Building Engineering, his passion for heritage and history has taken him in recent years to specialise in heritage digitalization. He collaborates with archaeological projects like Dessobriga, Poza de la Sal or Intercatia, among others. One of his main contributions is with the Fédération Européenne des Sites Clunisiens and the Cluny Ibérica Association, who are pursuing the valorization of the Cluniac legacy, promoting and digitalizing elements in Spain, Italy, Sweden, France and the United States, making them available online to everyone.
Gigi Leung currently works as a Research Assistant under the supervision of Dr Lastra. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Hong Kong, with a double major in Fine Arts (art history) and English Studies. An exchange year at the University of Edinburgh first ignited her interest in medieval art, literature, and culture.
Jasmin Lin is a curatorial assistant at the University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Lin assists research on museum collection and develops educational resources and programmes. She received her Bachelor of Social Sciences degree from HKU in 2020, majoring in Sociology and Art History, minoring in General Linguistics. In 2019-2020, she worked on The Pilgrim’s Guide digital resource and RomanesqueSpain project as an undergraduate student under supervision of Dr. Lastra. With extensive interest in medieval art history, Lin prospects to pursue a M.A. degree in art history to further study socio-economic interaction, gender and sexuality in medieval art and culture.