David Franz Hobelleitner

Research Focus

  • Visual arts of the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, especially Medieval wall painting in Italy
  • Theological and art-historical discourses on images
  • Iconographic and iconological interpretation (especially papal iconography, papal portrait series, and holy popes)
  • Art in ceremonial and liturgical contexts
  • Object studies, mediality, and materiality
  • (Artistic) exchange between Eastern and Latin Christianity  

 

Biography

David Hobelleitner studied Art History and Philosophy as well as Vocal Performance in Graz, completing his studies with a bachelor’s thesis on Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s “Rosary Madonna” (KHM Vienna) and a master’s thesis on Joseph Adam Mölk and the Baroque fresco decoration of the Cistercian Abbey Church of Rein/Styria. As a student assistant, he initially worked at the Institute of Art History at the University of Graz, where he was involved in the Slovenian-Austrian research project Patrons as Bearers of Regional Identity: Art in Styria from the Middle Ages to 1918. In 2015, he participated in the study course on Roman art of the Dugento at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max Planck Institute for Art History) in Rome.   His research focuses on the visual arts of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, with a particular emphasis on Italian art. At the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, he was a member of the DSP College  ‘Interdisciplinary Research into Historical Cultures‘ at the  Interdisciplinary Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies. IIn 2023, he completed his doctorate with a dissertation entitled “indubitanter efficitur sanctus.” Saintly Popes in Pictorial Programs of Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Rome, which was awarded the 2023  Romanesque Research Prize of the European Romanesque Center Merseburg. The publication is currently in preparation with Schnell & Steiner in Regensburg and is expected to be released later this year. From 2018 to 2024, David Hobelleitner was a research associate at PLUS as well as the University of Siegen in the winter semester of 2024/2025. In March 2025, he returned to the University of Salzburg. His current research project (working title: Heavenly Signs, Worldly Benefit. Visual Strategies and Performative Practice of Liturgical Fans) explores the performativity and materiality of flabelli and rhipidia. 

Publications

Oussama am Strand von Zarzis, in: Weiß, Matthias; Michalsky, Tanja (Hg.): Blick Richtung Europa? Dreißig „außereuropäische“ Objekte geben Antwort (Römische Studien der Bibliotheca Hertziana 52), München 2024, S. 322–333.

Santo subito? Popes as ‚New Saints‘ in the Age of Eleventh-Century Reform, in: Il Capitale Culturale 21, 2020, S. 61–85.

Papstreihen als visualisierte Vergangenheit, in: Augustyn, Wolfgang; Worm, Andrea (Hg.): Vergangenheit visualisieren. Geschichtskonzepte im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit, München 2020, S. 113–136.

»…auf dem abteylichen Chor ein Altar Coenae Domini.« Der Abendmahlsaltar in der Peterskirche des Benediktinerstifts Sankt Lambrecht und seine Auftraggeber, in: Hobelleitner, David Franz; Lein, Edgar (Hg.): Auftraggeber als Träger der Landesidentität. Kunst in der Steiermark vom Mittelalter bis 1918, Graz 2016, S. 85–98.

Zum Leben und Werk des Joseph Adam Mölk. Eine kurze Einführung, in: Stadlober, Margit; Steinklauber, Ulla; Klein, Eva (Hg.): Schloss Thinnfeld. Ein Gesamtkunstwerk des 18. Jahrhunderts (Forschungen zur geschichtlichen Landeskunde der Steiermark 69), Graz 2015, S. 121–125.

Complete list of publications