Paths of the Gaze – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Religious Experiences in Catholic Sanctuaries

This paper aims to provide new insights into religious experiences in Catholic sanctuaries through the gaze of different types of visitors (young students, priests, nuns, religious, art historians, historians of Christianity, etc.). Applying an innovative methodology based on eye trackers provided by Meta to the Universities of Modena and Reggio Emilia, we are pioneering the application of this technology to the field of religious studies. The collaboration between computer scientists specialising in Artificial Intelligence and gaze studies and historians of Christianity and of devotion characterises this research as strongly interdisciplinary. In particular, our research focuses on analysing gaze tracking and personal experiences of different user groups within the sacred spaces of medieval and early modern Italian sanctuaries. After providing a historical introduction to the selected locations, our paper will delve into our methodological approach, which combines religious studies with IT technologies. We will then analyse the data obtained from the eye trackers, focusing on aspects of ‹material religion›, such as: (i) practices conducted in the sacred space; (ii) behaviours in front of images and bodies of saints considered miraculous; (iii) movement through the space and its perception; (iv) devotional practices, including prayers and gestures. This paper is part of the ITSERR (Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE) PNRR project, which aims to apply new technologies to the study of religion.