Jessica Savage
Profile
MLIS, Rutgers University, 2014; M.Litt, University of Glasgow, 2009
Jessica Savage joined the Index of Medieval Art in 2010 as a cataloguer on the Morgan Library collaborative project. She further researched objects contained in the core Index files, worked on special digitization projects, and collaborated on the information planning and design for the next Index database. Savage received her Master of Letters degree in Early European Art History from the University of Glasgow, where she studied at Christie’s Education in London. Her thesis investigated the iconography of late medieval English relics and souvenirs in local centers of pilgrimage. Savage also earned her BFA in Fine Arts and Art History from Pratt Institute in New York. In 2014, Savage completed her MLIS degree at Rutgers University, concentrating her coursework in archival practice. Before joining the Index, she held professional cataloguing roles in the art and antiquarian book businesses. Her interests include the iconographic cycles of fifteenth century devotional manuscripts in England and France, especially commemorative miniatures, moralizing virtues, and allegorical subjects in late medieval prayer books and Books of Hours; manuscript materials and artistic production in the early print age, especially in Paris; as well as, the Index’s institutional legacy, library and digital humanities initiatives, and art cataloguing and subject vocabularies.
Selected Publications
“Before the Parliament of Heaven: Visualizing the Reconciled Virtues of Psalm 84.11,” in Tributes to Adelaide Bennett Hagens: Manuscripts, Iconography, and the Late Medieval Viewer, ed. Pamela A. Patton and Judith K. Golden (Harvey Miller Publishers, 2017).
“Holkham Picture Bible,” “Harley Psalter,” “Esquiline Treasure,” and “Rocamadour,” in Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art (Oxford University Press, 2012).
“Margery Kempe,” in Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage (Brill, 2009).
Selected Papers
“Dynamics of a Digital Art History Collection: The Next Index,” Bibliography Among the Disciplines, Conference of the Rare Book School, October 2017.
“The Princeton Index’s ‘Medium’ and the Immaterial Nature of Digital Work: Manuscripts Reassessed,” Manuscript as Medium, Fordham University, March 2016.
“The Index of Christian Art at Ninety-Seven: Bringing Charles Rufus Morey’s Vision to Twenty-First Century Researchers,” The Digital World of Art History: Standards and Their Application, Princeton University, June 2014.
“Pilgrims, Poetry, and the Passion of Christ: M.147 in the Pierpont Morgan Library,” Faith and Landscape in the Middle Ages, 42nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association, April 2011.