Crucified saints in the early seventeenth century: Models and devotional practices from the orthodox to the liminal in Spanish Europe

Mostaccio, Silvia
(2022) Eloquent images. Evangelisation, Conversion and Propaganda in the Global World of the Early Modern Period — ISBN: [9789462703278], p. 151-168, published

Files

Eloquent-Images_MOSTACCIO_Proof1-10.pdf
  • Open Access
  • Adobe PDF
  • 3.45 MB
Download

Details

Authors
Abstract
During the first half of the 17th century, several illustrated books by Jesuit authors printed in Flanders presented the cross as the devotion at the very center of a pastoral activity in connection with the essentialia of Christian beliefs. Furthermore, in an era of religious missions and wars, this same devotion to the cross also refers to the fundamental dimension of martyrdom for the faith, following the model of Christ and the proto-martyrs. Significant examples are the Triumphus Iesu Christi crucifixi by Bartolomeo Ricci (Antuerpiae, 1608), and the Sacrum Sanctuarium crucis et patentiae crucifixorum et cruciferorum by Pedro Bivero (Antuerpiae 1634). Following the close dialogue between text and images, this contribution presents the theological and exegetical framework and, above all, the pastoral concerns revealed by such publications. However, the devotions of the specialists of the sacred were not the only ones to spread. In the same years, Spanish European possessions experienced other manifestations of devotion to the cross. These witness the needs of individuals and communities, living in times of war, famine and plague. The documents of the Roman Inquisition tribunal and the images that survived the censorship of the Church are among the most important sources for studing these devotions. Circulating among sources of different nature and origin but united by the same devotion - the cross -, allows us to force the enclosure of the single "pastoral from above", to translate into historiographic practice the necessary articulation between the missionary and the missionized.
Affiliations

Citations

  • APA
  • Chicago
  • FWB

Mostaccio, S. (2022). Crucified saints in the early seventeenth century: Models and devotional practices from the orthodox to the liminal in Spanish Europe. In Giuseppe Capriotti, Pierre-Antoine Fabre, Sabina Pavone (ed.), Eloquent images. Evangelisation, Conversion and Propaganda in the Global World of the Early Modern Period (p. p. 151-168). Leuven University Press. https://doi.org/10.11116/9789461664488