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In the midst of late winter, the Marian Library has been busy digitizing some of its one-of-a-kind archival collections related to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This week, the library made over 100 new digital items available online. Brand new additions include items from the Marian Artifacts and Realia collection. This unique collection includes devotional scapulars, badges, shrine and pilgrimage souvenirs, and other three-dimensional Catholic ephemera dating from the late 19^th century through recent years. The collection is unique in that it references devotional practices of Catholics via “everyday” or ephemeral objects.

Items like a glass vial containing cotton soaked in myrrh (above left) documents a pilgrimage to the myrrh-bearing and scented icon of the Virgin of the Root of Jesse in Andros, Greece. The aluminum ex-voto depicting an ear (above right) was used as a religious offering at the shine in Tinos, Greece. It is not uncommon for ex-votos such as this to serve as a testament to a miraculously healed body part.

In addition to artifacts and realia, the Marian Library continues to catalog and digitize items from its expansive postcard collections, many of which depict Marian shrines around the world. Need more info about an item in the Marian Library’s digital collections? Email us your questions at mlimri@udayton.edu.

–  Jillian Ewalt, Librarian/Archivist and Assistant Professor