Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T09:35:51.129Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Louise Marshall
Louise Marshall*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Infamous Black Death of 1348 signaled the reappearance of bubonic plague in Europe after long centuries of absence. Contemporary accounts vividly describe the shock and horror of universal and indiscriminate mortality. From Tournai, Gilles Li Muisis observed that “no one was secure, whether rich, in moderate circumstances or poor, but everyone from day to day waited on the will of the Lord.” In any given area, between one third to half of the population would die. Worse still, the Black Death was only the beginning of a worldwide pandemic, or cyclical series of epidemics, recurring at intervals of two to twenty years throughout Europe until well into the seventeenth century.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1994 , pp. 485 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Material in this article is drawn from my doctoral dissertation, “ Waiting on the Will of the Lord: The Imagery of the Plague”, University of Pennsylvania, 1989. I wish to thank my advisor Leo Steinberg for his inspiration and support. Research for this article was made possible by the generous support of a Chester Dale Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and a Faculty Research Award from the University of Melbourne. This essay was accepted for publication in April 1992 and thus does not contain any bibliography beyond that date. The following abbreviations are used in the notes: AASS, Acta Sanctorum; BSS, Bibliotheca Sanctorum.

References

Acta Sanctorum. 3d ed. Paris, 1863-. Ahl, Diane C. “Benozzo Gozzoli's Frescoes of the Life of Saint Augustine in San Gimignano: Their Meaning in Context.” Artibus et historiae 13 (1986): 35-53.Google Scholar
Acta Sanctorum. “Due San Sebastiano di Benozzo Gozzoli a San Gimignano: un contribute al problema della pittura per la peste nel Quattrocento.” Rivista d'arte 40 (1988): 31-61.Google Scholar
Henri, Barré. Prières anciennes de I'Occident à la Mère du Sauveur: Des origines à saint Anseltne. Paris, 1963.Google Scholar
Belting, Hans The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages: Form and Function of Early Paintings of the Passion. Trans. Mark Bartusis and Raymond Meyer. New Rochelle, NY, 1990 (Trans, of German ed., Berlin, 1981).Google Scholar
Belting-Ihm, Christa “Sub matris tutela”: Untersuchung zur Vorgeschichte der Schutzmantelmadonna. Heidelberg, 1976.Google Scholar
Bianconi, G. Monografia della terra e comune di Deruta. 2d ed. Turin, 1889.Google Scholar
Bibliotheca|Sanctorum. Vol. 9. Rome, 1968.Google Scholar
Biraben, Jean-Noël. Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens. 2 vols. Paris, 1975.Google Scholar
Bowsky, William M. “The Impact of the Black Death upon Sienese Government and Society.” Speculum 39 (1964): 1-34.Google Scholar
Bowsky, William M., ed. The Black Death: A Turning Point in World History? New York, 1971.Google Scholar
Brion-Guerry, Liliane Le thème du “Triomphe de la Mort” dans la peinture italienne. Paris, 1950.Google Scholar
Brossolet, Jacqueline “Les danses macabres en temps de peste.” Koninklijk Museum voor schone Kunsten, Antwerpen, Jaarboek (1971): 29-72.Google Scholar
Brown, Peter The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago, 1981.Google Scholar
Brucker, Gene “Florence and the Black Death.” In Boccaccio: secoli di vita, ed. Marga Cottino-Jones and Edward F. Turtle, 21-30. Ravenna, 1977.Google Scholar
Carpentier, Elisabeth “Autour de la peste noire: famines et épidémies dans l'histoire du XIVe siècle.” Annates E.S.C. 17 (1962): 1062-92.Google Scholar
Carpentier, Elisabeth Une ville devant la peste: Orvieto et la Peste Noire de 1348. Paris, 1962 2.Google Scholar
Carmichael, AnnG “Plague Legislation and the Italian Renaissance.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57 (1983): 508-25.Google Scholar
Carpentier, Elisabeth Plague and the Poor in Fifteenth- Century Florence. Cambridge, 1986.Google Scholar
Carpentier, Elisabeth “Contagion Theory and Contagion Practice in Fifteenth-Century Milan.” Renaissance Quarterly 44 (1991): 213-56.Google Scholar
Cipolla, Carlo M. Public Health and the Medical Profession in the Renaissance. Cambridge, 1976.Google Scholar
Compagni, Dino Cronica delle cose occorenti ne'tempisuoi. Ed. F. Pittorru. Milan, 1965.Google Scholar
Corradi, Alfonso Annali delle epidemie occorse in Italia dalle prime memoriefmo al 1850. Ed. U. Stefanutti. 5 vols. 1865-94; rpt. Bologna, 1972.Google Scholar
Crawfurd, Raymond H. Plague and Pestilence in Literature and Art. Oxford, 1914.Google Scholar
Da Langasco, C. and Rotondi, P.. La “Consortia de li Forestèri” a Genova: Una Madonna di Barnaba da Modena e uno statuto del Trecento. Genoa, 1957.Google Scholar
Delehaye, Hippolyte Rev. otiL'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge by E. Mâle. Analecta Boltandia 28 (1909): 487-89.Google Scholar
DelPanta, Lorenzo Le epidemie nella storia demografia italiana (secoli XIV—XIX). Turin, 1980.Google Scholar
De Sandre Gasparini, G., ed. Statuti di confraternite religiose di Padova nel medio evo. Padua, 1974.Google Scholar
Emery, Richard W. “The Black Death of 1348 in Perpignan.” Speculum 42 (1967): 611-23.Google Scholar
Fabbi, Ansano. Visso e le sue valle. Spoleto, 1965.Google Scholar
Fliche, Antoine “Le problème de Saint Roch.” Analecta Bollandia 68 (1950): 343- 61.Google Scholar
Freuler, Gaudenzand Valerie Wainwright. Letter to the Editor. Art Bulletin 68 (1986): 327-28.Google Scholar
Giordano, da Pisa. Prediche del beato fra Giordano da Rivalto recitate in Firenze dal MCCClll al MCCCVl. Ed. Domenico Moreni. 2 vols. Florence, 1831.Google Scholar
Giorgio, Vasari. Principi, letterati e artisti nelle carte di Giorgio Vasari. Pittura vasariana dal 1532 al 1554. La Toscana nel ‘500. Florence, 1981.Google Scholar
Gottfried, Robert S. The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe. New York, 1983.Google Scholar
Gougaud, Louis Devotional and Ascetic Practices in the Middle Ages. Trans, by author and G. L. Bateman. London, 1927.Google Scholar
Graef, Hilda Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion. London, 1985 [orig. pub. 1963, 1965].Google Scholar
Hall, Edwin and Uhr, Horst. “Aureola super Auream: Crowns and Related Symbols of Special Distinction for Saints in Late Gothic and Renaissance Iconography.” Art Bulletin 67 (1985): 566-602.Google Scholar
Henderson, John “Epidemics in Renaissance Florence: Medical Theory and Government Response.” In Maladies et société (XII'-XVIW siècles), ed. Neithard Bulst and Robert Delort, 165-86. Paris, 1989.Google Scholar
Herlihy, David “Population, Plague and Social Change in Rural Pistoia.” Economic History Review, 2dser., 18 (1965): 225-44.Google Scholar
Kaftal, George Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting. Florence, 1952.Google Scholar
Kaftal, George Iconography of the Saints in Central and South Italian Schools of Painting. Florence, 1965.Google Scholar
Kaftal, George Iconography of the Saints in North West Italy. Florence, 1985.Google Scholar
Kieckhefer, Richard Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu. Chicago, 1984.Google Scholar
Langer, William L. “The Next Assignment.” The American Historical Review 63 (1958): 283-304.Google Scholar
Lerner, Robert E. “The Black Death and European Eschatological Mentalities.” In The Black Death: The Impact of the Fourteenth Century Plague, ed. Daniel Williman, 77-106. Binghamton, NY, 1982.Google Scholar
Lightbown, R Sandro Botticelli. 2 vols. Berkeley, 1978.Google Scholar
Mâle, Emile. Religious Art in France: The Late Middle Ages. A Study of Medieval Iconography and Its Sources. Ed. Harry Bober. Trans. Marthiel Mathews. Princeton, 1986 (first ed. 1908; trans, from 5th rev. ed., Paris, 1949).Google Scholar
Marshall, Louise. “Waiting on the Will of the Lord: The Imagery of the Plague.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1980.Google Scholar
Mazzi, Maria S. “La peste a Firenze nel Quattrocento.” In Strutture familiari epidemfae migrazioni nell'Italia medievale, ed. G. Piccini, R. Comba and G. Pinto, 91-115. Naples, 1984.Google Scholar
Meiss, Millard Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death. Princeton, 1951.Google Scholar
Meiss, Millard “An Early Altarpiece from the Cathedral of Florence.” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 12 (1954): 302-17.Google Scholar
Molajoli, Bruno Guida artistica di Fabriano. Genoa, 1968.Google Scholar
Mouaret, Henri H. andJacquelineBrossolet. “La peste, source méconnue d'inspiration artistique.” Koninklijk Museum voorschone Kunsten (Antwerpen) Jaarboek (1964): 3-112.Google Scholar
Naso, I. “Les hommes et les épidémies dans l'ltalie de la fin du Moyen Age: les réactions et les moyens de défense entre peur et méfiance.” In Maladies et société (XIIe- XVIIIe siècles), ed. Neithard Bulst and Robert Delort, 307-26. Paris, 1989.Google Scholar
Os, Henk W. van. “The Black Death and Sienese Painting: A Problem of Interpretation.” Art History 4(1981): 237-49. Rpt in idem., Sienese Altarpieces, 1215-1460: Form, Content, Function. Vol. 2, 1345- 1460, 24-33. Groningen, 1989.Google Scholar
Panofsky, Erwin “Imago Pietatis: Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des Schmerzensmanns und der Maria Mediatrix.” In Festschrift für Max J. Friedlander, 261-308. Leipzig, 1927.Google Scholar
Paul, the Deacon. Historia Langobardorum. Ed. G. Waitz, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum, saec. VI-IX. Hannover, 1878.Google Scholar
Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine. Vol 3, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600- 1300). Chicago, 1978.Google Scholar
Perdrizet, Paul. La Vierge de Miséricorde: Étude d'un thème iconographique. Paris, 1908.Google Scholar
Pesci, Benedetto. “II culto di San Sebastiano a Roma nell'antichità e nel medio evo.” In Miscellanea historia per Livario Oliger, 176— 200. Rome, 1945.Google Scholar
Polzer, Joseph. “Aspects of the Fourteenth- Century Iconography of Death and the Plague.” In The Black Death: The Impact of the Fourteenth Century Plague, ed. D. Williman, 107-30. Binghamton, NY, 1982.Google Scholar
Pullan, Brian “Support and redeem: charity and poor relief in Italian cities from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.” Continuity and Change 3 (1988): 177-208.Google Scholar
Réau, Louis. Iconographie de l’art chretien. 3 vols. Paris, 1955.Google Scholar
Renouard, Yves “Conséquences et intéréts démographiques de la peste noire de 1348.” Population 3 (1948): 459-66.Google Scholar
Ringbom, Sixten Icon to Narrative: The Rise of the Dramatic Close-up in Fifteenth- Century Devotional Painting. 2d rev. ed. Doornspijk, 1984 (first ed. 1965).Google Scholar
Ronen, Avraham “Gozzoli's St. Sebastian Altarpiece in San Gimignano.” Mittheilungen des Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz 32 (1988): 77-126.Google Scholar
Salvi, G. Memorie storiche di San Ginesio, Marche. Camerino, 1889.Google Scholar
Santi, Francesco Gonfaloni umbri del Rinascimento. Perugia, 1976.Google Scholar
Schiller, Gertrude Iconography of Christian Art. 2 vols. Trans. Janet Seligman. Greenwich, CT, 1971 (trans, of German ed., Gütersloh, 1969).Google Scholar
Schmitz-Eichoff, M. T. St. Rochus: Ikonographische und medizin-historische Studien. Cologne, 1977.Google Scholar
Sigerist, Henry E. “Sebastian-Apollo.” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 19 (1927): 301-17.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Leo “Metaphors of Love and Birth in Michelangelo's Pietàs.” In Studies in Erotic Art, ed. Theodore Bowie, 231-85. New York, 1970.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Leo The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion. New York, 1983.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Leo “Michelangelo's Florentine Pieta: The Missing Leg Twenty Years After.” Art Bulletin 71 (1989): 480-505.Google Scholar
Sussman, Vera “Maria mit dem Schutzmantel.” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 5 (1929): 285-351.Google Scholar
Tenenti, Alberto La vieetla mort à traversl'art du XVe siècle. Paris, 1952.Google Scholar
Tramontin, S. etal. Culto del santi a Venezia. Venice, 1965.Google Scholar
Trexler, Richard C. “Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image.” Studies in the Renaissance 19 (1972): 7-41. Rpt. in idem., Church and Community 1200-1600: Studies in the History of Florence and New Spain, 37-74. Rome, 1987.Google Scholar
Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. New York, 1980.Google Scholar
Vaslef, Irene “The Role of St. Roch as a Plague Saint: A Late Medieval HagiographicTradition.” Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1984.Google Scholar
Vauchez, André. “Patronage des saints et religion civique dans l'ltalie communale à la fin du Moyen Age. ”In Patronage and Public in the Trecento, ed. Vincent Moleta, 59-80. Florence, 1986.Google Scholar
Voragine, Jacopo da. The Golden Legend. Trans, and adapted Granger Ryan and Helmut Ripperger. New York, 1941.Google Scholar
Ward, Benedicta. Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000- 1215. Philadelphia, 1982.Google Scholar
Williman, Daniel, ed. The Black Death: The Impact of the Fourteenth Century Plague. Binghamton, NY, 1982.Google Scholar
Wohl, Helmutt. The Paintings of Domenico Veneziano, c. 1410-1461: A Study in Florentine Art of the Early Renaissance. New York, 1980.Google Scholar
Ziegler, Phillip The Black Death. New York, 1969.Google Scholar
Zupnick, I. L. “Saint Sebastian in Art.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1958.Google Scholar