Marie-Laure Davigo
Marie-Laure Davigo is an independent researcher in art history and archaeology of the Byzantine world and the Christian East.
Holder of a degree (mention Très Bien) from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE/PSL) in religious studies, she defended her dissertation in 2022 under the supervision of Ioanna Rapti on « The Icons of the Coptic Orthodox Churches of the Diocese of Qousseya-Meir, Metropolis of Asyut in Upper Egypt ». She is currently completing a degree at the Institute for Eastern Christianity (ICO) in Paris and pursues her research at the Byzantine Library of the Collège de France and at Ioanna Rapti’s seminar at the EPHE.
Her research focuses on the art of the Christian East, especially in Egypt and Jerusalem under the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, and on the aesthetic, theological and identity-related stakes of Coptic icons. A scientific catalogue of unpublished icons from the diocese of Qousseya-Meir is forthcoming with the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo, and an article on the painter Anastasi al-Qudsī al-Rūmī and his unpublished icons in the Church of Archangel Gabriel at Qousseya is to appear in Eastern Christian Art (Peeters, Louvain).
An icon conservator trained at the Byzantine Museum of Athens (1980) and laureate of the Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation for Vocation, she worked for the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) in cooperation with the Coptic Orthodox Church (2003), for the Sacred Art Centre of the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK, Lebanon, 2004), and carried out the inventory of the medieval Christian heritage of Albania as well as of icons in northern Syria for Mgr Edelby. She is also interested in the geopolitics of the Near East and in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.
At the Pluriel Congress in Cordoba in February 2026, she delivered a paper entitled : « The Kaaba and the Holy Sepulchre in image: memory of pilgrimage ».
Resources related to
History
article
Experiencing a Mosque Through Photography: Islam As an Ordinary Religion
- Guillaume Chatagny
Abstract Published in 2021 in Visual Ethnography (vol. 10, no. 2) under the title "Experiencing a Mosque Through Photography: Islam As an Ordinary Religion", this article by Guillaume Chatagny, ...
article
Islam Seen through the Work of Aziz al-Azmeh
- Wasim Salman
Abstract Published in Arabic in issue 50 (2024) of Islamochristiana (PISAI, released in April 2025), this essay by Wasim Salman, president of PISAI and director of the journal, examines the rela...
article
Islamic Visions of Jesus: Revelation, Prophecy, and Eschatology
- Antonio Cuciniello
Abstract Published in the collective volume Jerusalem in Memory and Eschatology: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Visions of the Past and Future of Jerusalem, edited by Emma O'Donnell Polyakov (Blo...
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The First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Christian-Muslim Dialogue on God’s Unity and Trinity
- Dirk Ansorge
Abstract Published under the original title "Das erste Konzil von Nizäa (325) und der christlich-muslimische Dialog über Gottes Einheit und Dreifaltigkeit" in issue 2/2025 of CIBEDO-Beiträge, th...
publication
Religious Freedom in Italy. An Unfinished Path (1848-2024)
- Alessandro Ferrari
Published under the original title La libertà religiosa in Italia. Un percorso incompiuto (1848-2024), this synthesis by Alessandro Ferrari, professor of ecclesiastical law and comparative religiou...
publication
The Recognition of a Hummingbird. Essays on Interreligious Dialogue and Missionary Work (2007-2025)
- Rémi Caucanas
Published in May 2026 by PISAI (Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Rome), this collection brings together the essays of Rémi Caucanas on interreligious dialogue and missionary wor...
videos
From Lavigerie to PISAI: The Institutional History of the Missionaries of Africa’s Engagement with Islam
Delivered on 21 May 2026 at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome, this lecture opens the series of conferences marking the institute's centenary (1926-2026). Fr. ...
publication
Maurice Borrmans and the Crisis of Christian-Muslim Dialogue. Islamic studies in Question?
- Florence Javel
In 2025-2026, we mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and of the declaration Nostra aetate (28 October 1965). One century earlier, in October 1925, Maurice Borrmans was born ...