My research focuses on the historical and semantic interpretation of codified hand gestures in Early Modern painting (https://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503584836-1/). I investigate the origins and meanings of individual gestures, as well as the ways in which they combine to form what I define as chirographic accords. More broadly, my work situates pictorial gesture language within the wider history of co-speech gestures and sign languages.

A central component of this research was the project Following the Festaiuolo (https://crea.univie.ac.at/projects/following-the-festaiuolo/). In addition to the analysis of pointing gestures in Early Modern painting, this project examined differences in art perception among Deaf signers, art experts, and lay viewers. Using eye-tracking methods, the project investigated how beholders from diverse cultural and cognitive backgrounds perceive and interpret narrative paintings.

Another strand of my research concerns the application of digital methods in art history. In this context, I am currently involved in the Jacques-Edouard Berger Foundation project The Vasari Diagram, an open-access platform that explores Wikipedia-based networks of Old and Modern Masters (http://vasari.li/).

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