Religious Materiality in the Early Modern World

Religious Materiality in the Early Modern World

This collection of essays offers a comparative perspective on religious materiality across the early modern world. Setting out from the premise that artefacts can provide material evidence of the nature of early modern religious practices and beliefs, the volume tests and challenges conventional narratives of change based on textual sources. Religious Materiality in the Early Modern World brings together scholars of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist practices from a range of fields, including history, art history, museum curatorship and social anthropology. The result is an unprecedented account of the wealth and diversity of devotional objects and environments, with a strong emphasis on cultural encounters, connections and exchanges.
  • Title page
  • Series page
  • Half Title page
  • Copyright page
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Illustrations
  • Abbreviations
  • Acknowledgements
  • Introduction
    • Bynum and the Study of Religious Materiality
    • Reconceiving Religion
    • Early Modern Contexts
    • Meanings, Practices, Transformations
    • Bibliography
    • About the Authors
  • Part I Meanings
    • 1. Wax versus Wood: The Material of Votive Offerings in Renaissance Italy
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 2. The Substance of Divine Grace: Ex-votos and the Material of Paper in Early Modern Italy
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 3. Powerful Objects in Powerful Places: Pilgrimage, Relics and Sacred Texts in Tibetan Buddhism
      • Scriptures as Voice/Sound Relics
      • The Princess Chokyi Dronma and the Power of Scriptures as Relics
      • A Fifteenth-Century Debate on the Devotional Approach to Books as ­Ritual Objects
      • Books, Relics and Places: Pilgrimage as a Way to ‘Meet’ the Sacred
      • Conclusion
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 4. Myer Myers: Silversmith in the Spanish-­Portuguese Synagogue Ledger
      • Holy Sedakah or the Ledger of Shearith Israel in New York
      • Appendix
      • Bibliography
      • About the Author and Editor
  • Part II Practices
    • 5. Christian Materiality between East and West: Notes of a Capuchin among the Christians of the Ottoman Empire
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 6. The Materiality of Death in Early Modern Venice
      • The Presence of Dead Bodies
      • The Ambiguity of Material Remains
      • Materiality around the Body
      • Conclusion
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 7. Living with the Virgin in the Colonial Andes: Images and Personal Devotion
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 8. ‘Watching myself in the mirror, I saw ʿAlī in my eyes’: On Sufi Visual and Material Practice in the Balkans
      • Esoteric Interpretations in Sufi Material Culture
      • ʿĀshūrāʾ and Sultan Nawruz
      • Ways of Training the Nafs
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the author
  • Part III Transformations
    • 9. Religious Materiality in the Kunstkammer of Rudolf II
      • The Sacred in the Kunstkammer
      • Objects as Windows onto Early Modern Materialities
        • Case Study 1: Coconut-Shell Aspersorium
        • Case Study 2: Agate Statue of Mary Magdalene by Ottavio Miseroni
      • Conclusion
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 10. The Reformation of the Rosary Bead: Protestantism and the Perpetuation of the Amber Paternoster
      • Rosaries and Reform
      • Lutheranizing Amber
      • Securing Amber as Fully Lutheran
      • Back to the Bead
      • Conclusion
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 11. Magical Words: Arabic Amulets in Christian Spain
      • Dangerous Arabic
      • Magical Arabic
      • Amulets in Morisco Writing: The Libro de dichos maravillosos
      • Extant Amulets
      • Holy Arabic: Magic, Monotheism and the Struggle over Christianity in Spain
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
    • 12. Mesoamerican Idols, Spanish Medicine: Jade in the Collection of Philip II
      • Bibliography
        • Primary Sources
        • Secondary Sources
      • About the Author
  • Epilogue
    • Bibliography
      • Primary Sources
      • Secondary Sources
    • About the Author
  • Index

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