For his research project on Marian shrines, assistant professor Marco Papasidero travelled from Palermo to Brussels to find materials that are not yet available in digital form. The aim of his research is to develop a digital tool that uses artificial intelligence to extract and analyse data and knowledge for the study of religion.
From May to June 2025, Marco Papasidero visited the research library of the Société des Bollandistes in Brussels as part of the RESILIENCE TNA programme. He is an assistant professor (RTDa) at the University of Palermo and a member of the ITSERR project (Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE – www.itserr.it), which is affiliated to RESILIENCE and which fully funded the research stay.
We asked him about the rationale behind this research trip:
What are your research topics, and what relevance do your findings have?
My research project analyses legends about the foundation of Marian shrines, written in Italian during the early modern period, especially in the 17th and early 18th centuries. It falls within the scope of Work Package 6 of the ITSERR project that develops the digital tool YASMINE. One part of this project involves collecting material relating to the history of Catholic shrines.
Why did you have to go on a research trip for this?
The research library of the Société des Bollandistes in Brussels, like the Maurits Sabbe Library of the KU Leuven, is one of a number of institutions that preserve a large part of the historical book collections of the Jesuits from the Low Countries.
At the Bollandist Library, I was able to consult various volumes containing legends about the foundation of Marian shrines dating back to the early modern period that were not available anywhere online. One such book was a small volume on the legend of the foundation and cult of the image of Santa Maria del Portico.
What is innovative about your research?
In this part of the ITSERR project (WP6) we develop a tool using artificial intelligence to extract and analyse data and knowledge from various sources, including the web, for use in the study of religion. The tool, called YASMINE, will be applied to different case studies; one is “Sanctuaria,” which focuses on shrines and their connections and for which I collected material at Brussels.
YASMINE is designed to help users investigate the legends surrounding the foundations of shrines. For this purpose, an extensive corpus of “ex-votos” by Prof Renato Grimaldi (University of Turin) is provided, containing, for example, images painted on wood that were offered to the shrines by people who believed they had experienced a miraculous healing.
The tool will enable advanced semantic querying of this valuable text corpus, that will continue to grow to ensure the long-term sustainability and relevance of the platform. The goal is to produce new knowledge and provide access to new sources and frameworks for the study of religion.
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Thank you very much for this interview, Marco Papasidero! We wish you all the best for your research.
Visual: Marco Papasidero, director Robert Godding, and François De Vriendt.