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I am a lecturer in art history at the University of Sydney, Australia. My particular research interests have focused primarily on the protective imagery created in 14th-16th century Italy in response to the repeated experience of bubonic plague: ie images of Christ, the Virgin and plague saints such as Sebastian, Roch and the Augustinian Nicholas of Tolentino. This was the subject of my PhD, "'Waiting on the Will of the Lord': the Imagery of the Plague", University of Pennsylvania, 1989, and a 1994 article in Renaissance Quarterly, "Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy", RQ 47 (1994): 485-532. I also have an article on plague images commissioned by Italian confraternities forthcoming in a collection on confraternities and the arts to be published by Toronto UP. I would welcome comments, reactions, criticisms and all form of feedback, and have too many queries to pose all at once to this list! Eg I would love to hear from anyone working on Nicholas of Tolentino or other plague saints, or the cult of the Virgin (huge topic I know...; I'm especially interested in the way in which the Virgin can operate as an autonomous power, actively opposing and subverting God's--whether Christ or God the Father--implacably punitive intentions towards a sinful humanity.) Louise Marshall Dept of Fine Arts University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%