In this book, Diana Bullen Presciutti explores how images of miracles performed by mendicant saints-reviving dead children, redeeming the unjustly convicted, mending broken marriages, quelling factional violence, exorcising the demonically possessed-actively shaped Renaissance Italians' perceptions of pressing social problems related to gender, sexuality, and honor. She argues that depictions of these miracles by artists-both famous (Donatello, Titian) and anonymous-played a critical role in defining and conceptualizing threats to family honor and social stability. Drawing from art history, history, religious studies, gender studies, and sociology, Presciutti's interdisciplinary study reveals how miracle scenes-whether painted, sculpted, or printed-operated as active agents of 'lived religion' and social negotiation in the spaces of the Renaissance Italian city.

Winner, 2024 Book Prize, American Association for Italian Studies

Runner-up, 2025 Book Prize, Italian Art Society

‘How does an act that threatens the stability of society become one that advances its highest values? How do transgressive behaviors evince the presence of the divine on earth? How does society contend with the unimaginable and how do images figure in that process? Focusing on fifteenth-century depictions of miracles performed by six mendicant saints (including Anthony of Padua, Vincent Ferrer, and Catherine of Siena), this comprehensively researched, perceptively analyzed, and lucidly written book considers these questions. Diana Bullen Presciutti’s study is a welcomed contribution to art history and the history of religion.’

Fredrika Jacobs - Professor Emerita of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University

‘One of the most engaging and enlightening books about the visual culture of the Renaissance that I’ve read in a long time. It is learned, readable and innovative. From start to finish the explication of the images is virtuosic.’

Mary Laven - Chair of the Faculty of History, Professor of Early Modern History, University of Cambridge