Ex-votos – otherwise milagros, retablos or tamata, votive offerings in a number of historical and modern Christianities – are conventionally described as thank-offerings to a saint for his or her intercession with God in securing cures, help and rescue in cases of illness, suffering or danger. At the same time, they are ephemera: routinely cleared out of churches, some are then simply destroyed; others are relegated to sacristies or displayed in museums or art galleries; some are now reduced to the status of internet collectibles. These paradoxical objects, whether the work of craftsmen, mass-produced or home-made, are of crucial importance to an understanding of religious intuitions and behaviour.

Developments over the last decade or so in the cognitive science of religion have  opened up the possibility of uncovering the historical and current meanings of the Christian ex-voto, so that we can move past current reductive characterisations of it as an ‘expression of popular piety’ or ‘popular religion’.   As objects common to both non-Christian and Christian traditions, they are of extraordinary and enduring significance in terms of religious belief and practice.   Observations of the form and content of ex-votos as well as of the way they are currently used and displayed can help throw light on the ex-voto as  evidence of the intuitions forming the cognitive underpinning of Catholic and Orthodoxy Christianities through the centuries, even during periods of tension with their officially expressed theologies.

The pictures displayed on this website were taken during research visits for my forthcoming book, Ex-voto, A Cognitive History.  These visits were  made possible by the award of a Research Incentive Grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, which enabled me to collect images and information in Greece, Montenegro, Slovenia and various locations in Italy in the spring and summer of 2015. On this website they are organised according to location, but sometimes according to theme as well: one aim of the book is to investigate what in Italy are called edicole  or pilone and are often referred to in English as ‘wayside shrines’.  It also looks at the relationship between the spectacular devotional sites known as the sacri monti of Northern Italy and the ex-voto.

Teachers and academics are welcome to use these images in their teaching:  but if you do use any, please contact me to let me know. They may not be used for commercial purposes; and if you want to use any in a publication, please contact me to ask permission (Marilyn.Dunn@glasgow.ac.uk).