Gabriela Sierocka, Class of 2026, has received First Place in the 2026 Hesburgh Libraries Capstone or Thesis Research Award for her Honors Senior Thesis, Visions of Judgment: Reimagining Dante’s Inferno in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Art, completed under the direction of Prof. Theodore Cachey.
Gabriela’s thesis examines how four major artists—William Blake, Gustave Doré, Alberto Martini, and Salvador Dalí—reinterpret Dante’s Inferno in ways that reflect the evolving philosophical, cultural, and psychological concerns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
In addition to the written thesis, Gabriela created an accompanying interactive digital project that allows viewers to explore the artworks alongside Dante’s text and engage directly with her argument. Her work combines literary study, visual analysis, archival research, and digital humanities methodologies.
The award recognizes not only the quality of the thesis itself but also Gabriela’s extensive and sophisticated use of Hesburgh Libraries resources, especially the renowned Zahm Dante Collection in Rare Books and Special Collections. In her submission essay for the award, Gabriela reflects on how access to early printed editions of the Divine Comedy, medieval manuscript facsimiles, rare illustrated editions, and digital image databases fundamentally shaped the direction of her research. She writes that “the Hesburgh Libraries did not provide a backdrop for this thesis. They were the condition that made it possible.”
Her essay highlights the importance of the Zahm Dante Collection—one of the foremost Dante collections in North America—which includes a nearly complete sequence of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century editions of the Commedia. Working directly with these materials allowed Gabriela to trace how visual interpretations of Dante evolved across centuries and informed the later artistic traditions explored in her thesis.
In addition to her thesis work, Gabriela has also published a compelling essay on Counter-Reformation art and visual experience. In her essay, she explores how Baroque artists such as Andrea Pozzo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Caravaggio used illusion, space, and embodiment to shape belief and guide the viewer’s experience of the sacred, arguing that art functioned as a powerful theological and persuasive medium.
Both Gabriela’s submission essay and accompanying website, as well as her essay on Counter-Reformation art, are available below:
- Visions of Judgment: Reimagining Dante’s Inferno in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Art (hard copy available for consultation at the Center for Italian Studies, 377 Decio Faculty Hall); Capstone or Thesis Research Award submission essay
- Visions of Judgment
- When Seeing became Believing
Congratulations to Gabriela on her upcoming graduation and on these remarkable scholarly achievements!