Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy
Ritual, Spectacle, Image

This 2000 book was the first to consider the role of Italian confraternities in the patronage of art.

Barbara Wisch (Author), Diane Cole Ahl (Author)

9781107403406, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 September 2011

332 pages
24.6 x 18.9 x 1.8 cm, 0.6 kg

Review of the hardback: '… succinctly introduces the reader to the devotional and charitable aims of the confraternities.' Brian Tovey, Art Newspaper

First published in 2000, Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy: Ritual, Spectacle, Image was the first book to consider the role of Italian confraternities in the patronage of art. Eleven interdisciplinary essays analyze confraternal painting, sculpture, architecture, and dramatic spectacles by documenting the unique historical and ritual contexts in which they were experienced. Exploring the evolution of devotional practices, the roles of women and youths, the age's conception of charity, and the importance of confraternities in civic politics and urban design, this book offers illuminating approaches to one of the most dynamic forms of corporate patronage in early modern Italy.

Introduction Barbara Wisch and Diane Cole Ahl
1. Confraternity and community: mobilizing the sacred in times of Plague Louise Marshall
2. 'In corpo di compagnia': art and devotion in the Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi of Florence Diane Cohl
3. The Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi in Florence: a reconstruction of its Residence at San Marco, 1440–1506 Ann Matchette
4.The acquisition of art by a Florentine youth confraternity: the case of Arcangelo Raffaello Konrad Eisenbichler
5. The Qualità of mercy: (re)building confraternal charities in Renaissance Bologna Nicholas Terpstra
6. Passion, compassion, and the sorrows of women: Niccolò dell'Arca's Lamentation over the Dead Christ for the Bolognese confraternity of Santa Maria della Vita Randi Klebanoff
7. The decorum of the Passion: the plays of the confraternity of the Gonfalone in the Roman Colosseum, 1490–1539 Nerida Newbigin
8. New themes for new rituals: the Crucifixion Altarpiece by Roviale Spagnuolo for the Oratory of the Gonfalone in Rome Barbara Wish
9. Appropriating space: woman's place in the confraternal life at Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome Eunice D. Howe
10. 'E faucibus daemonis': daughters of prostitutes, the first Jesuits, and the Compagnia delle Vergini Miserabili di Santa Caterina della Rosa Lance G. Lazar
11. 'She is among all virgins the queen … so worthy a patron … for maidens to copy': Livio Agresti, Cardinal Federico Cesi, and the Compagnia delle Vergini Miserabili di Santa Caterina della Rosa Louise Smith Bross
Selected bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of art & design styles: c 1400 to c 1600 [ACN]