ACIS is delighted to announce the winners of the 2021 Jo-Anne Duggan Prize for a publication by a postgraduate/early career researcher, and the inaugural ACIS Publication Prize for an established scholar.

The ACIS Publication Prize for an established scholar has been awarded to Prof. Carolyn James for her monograph A Renaissance Marriage: The Political and Personal Alliance of Isabella d'Este and Francesco Gonzaga 1490-1519 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

This prize is awarded for peer-reviewed research published between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2020 by an established academic in Australasia working in any field of Italian Studies. The research must have made a significant contribution to knowledge in the field of Italian Studies, broadly defined.

The adjudicators for this year's prize were Professor Emeritus Nerida Newbigin (University of Sydney) and Professor Emeritus Richard Bosworth (University of Oxford) who wrote in part:

“The outstanding features of this work are the rigorous control of the narrative that ranges over three courts and their ruling families, and at the same time the delicate sensitivity to the complex aspects of a relationship between two very headstrong people. This is a worthy recipient of the inaugural ACIS prize.”

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The Jo-Anne Duggan Prize for a postgraduate/early career researcher has been awarded to Jennifer McFarland for her article “Relics, reinvention, and reform in Renaissance Venice: Catherine of Siena’s stigmata at the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo”, Renaissance Studies, 34.2 (2020): 278-302.

This prize is awarded in memory of Jo-Anne Duggan, a champion of Italian Studies in Australasia, whose written and artistic oeuvre made a distinguished contribution to ACIS and the broader community, and whose life was cut short prematurely. The prize  is awarded to a publication by a postgraduate or early career researcher in Italian Studies broadly defined within 5 years of the conferral of their award from an Australian or New Zealand University for a sole-authored work published between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2020. 

The adjudicators for this year's prize were Associate Professors Francesco Borghesi (University of Sydney) and Sally Hill (Victoria University of Wellington). They wrote in conclusion:

“The article moves from the detail of the relic of Saint Catherine’s foot within its reliquary in the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice to a wide-ranging consideration of the categories of ‘reformed ‘ and ‘unreformed’ and of shifts in devotional practices in early modern Venetian and Italian religion. It demonstrates impressive scholarship and detailed research, and provides a strong example of the value of careful consideration of material and visual culture in historical research.”

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Both winners are invited to present a paper based on their award-winning publication and/or its ongoing research at the ACIS Conference 2022.

We extend our warmest congratulations to both Professor James, and Ms McFarland.