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

by Barbara Wisch , Diane Cole Ahl

• ISBN13: 9780521662888
• ISBN10: 0521662885
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-05-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is the first book to consider the role of confraternities in the patronage and function of art works, a significant phenomenon that has been virtually ignored in scholarship to date. The interdisciplinary essays gathered in this volume examine the painting, sculpture, architecture, drama, and spectacle commissioned by these organizations and also demonstrate the unique historical and ritual contexts in which they were experienced. The role of women and youths in confraternities, the evolution of devotional practices, confraternities and urban planning, and the age's view of charity and philanthropy are among the many topics addressed in this volume. Offering new approaches to understanding confraternal art, this study sheds new light on the most vital forms of corporate patronage in early modern Italy.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
List of Contributors	xiii
Introduction	1	(19)
Barbara Wisch
Diane Cole Ahl
Confraternity and Community: Mobilizing the Sacred in Times of Plague	20	(26)
Louise Marshall
``In corpo di compagnia'': Art and Devotion in the Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi of Florence	46	(28)
Diane Cole Ahl
The Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi in Florence: A Reconstruction of Its Residence at San Marco, 1440--1506	74	(28)
Ann Matchette
Appendix: Documents	93	(9)
The Acquisition of Art by a Florentine Youth Confraternity: The Case of the Arcangelo Raffaello	102	(15)
Konrad Eisenbichler
The Qualita of Mercy: (Re)building Confraternal Charities in Renaissance Bologna	117	(29)
Nicholas Terpstra
Passion, Compassion, and the Sorrows of Women: Niccolo dell'Arca's Lamentation over the Dead Christ for the Bolognese Confraternity of Santa Maria della Vita	146	(27)
Randi Klebanoff
Appendix: The Composition of the Lamentation	169	(4)
The Decorum of the Passion: The Plays of the Confraternity of the Gonfalone in the Roman Colosseum, 1490--1539	173	(30)
Nerida Newbigin
New Themes for New Rituals: The Crucifixion Altarpiece by Roviale Spagnuolo for the Oratory of the Gonfalone in Rome	203	(32)
Barbara Wisch
Appendix 1: Documents	225	(4)
Appendix 2: History of the Attribution and New Conclusions	229	(6)
Appropriating Space: Woman's Place in Confraternal Life at Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome	235	(24)
Eunice D. Howe
``E faucibus daemonis'': Daughters of Prostitutes, the First Jesuits, and the Compagnia delle Vergini Miserabili di Santa Caterina della Rosa	259	(21)
Lance G. Lazar
``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	280	(19)
Louise Smith Bross
Selected Bibliography	299	(10)
Index	309