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This chapter traces the changing messages of the tomb of St. Francis Xavier as different components of the monument were completed. I begin in the 1630s when Goan silversmiths working under the Neapolitan Jesuit Marcello Mastrilli created... more
This chapter traces the changing messages of the tomb of St. Francis Xavier as different components of the monument were completed. I begin in the 1630s when Goan silversmiths working under the Neapolitan Jesuit Marcello Mastrilli created a silver sarcophagus to house
Xavier’s incorrupt body. My argument demonstrates that the iconography of the tomb created a visual language that propagated the discourse of Goa Dourada, glorifying the geographic reach, military might, and sanctity of the Portuguese Empire, precisely at the moment when that empire began to crumble. I then examine the marble pedestal of the tomb, commissioned by Cosimo III de’ Medici, made in Italy, and delivered to the Jesuits of Goa in 1698. This addition diluted the rhetorical impact of the silver sarcophagus and severed the entire tomb monument from its Portuguese-Asian specificity. In other words, the Medici addition to the tomb does not participate in the rhetoric of Goa Dourada and instead reorients the cult of Francis Xavier in Goa back towards the Italian peninsula, promoting him as a Vatican-approved Counter-Reformation saint who perpetuates the sacrifice of Christ into a new age when the Roman Catholic Church was swiftly becoming a world religion.
Xavier’s incorrupt body. My argument demonstrates that the iconography of the tomb created a visual language that propagated the discourse of Goa Dourada, glorifying the geographic reach, military might, and sanctity of the Portuguese Empire, precisely at the moment when that empire began to crumble. I then examine the marble pedestal of the tomb, commissioned by Cosimo III de’ Medici, made in Italy, and delivered to the Jesuits of Goa in 1698. This addition diluted the rhetorical impact of the silver sarcophagus and severed the entire tomb monument from its Portuguese-Asian specificity. In other words, the Medici addition to the tomb does not participate in the rhetoric of Goa Dourada and instead reorients the cult of Francis Xavier in Goa back towards the Italian peninsula, promoting him as a Vatican-approved Counter-Reformation saint who perpetuates the sacrifice of Christ into a new age when the Roman Catholic Church was swiftly becoming a world religion.
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In the years leading up to Francis Xavier’s canonization, hagiographers emphasized the unprecedented nature of his mission to Asia by giving him various appellations that specifically identified the places where he had spread the Gospel... more
In the years leading up to Francis Xavier’s canonization, hagiographers emphasized the unprecedented nature of his mission to Asia by giving him various appellations that specifically identified the places where he had spread the Gospel during his ministry, such as “the first Apostle to Japan.” However, the 1623 canonization bull introduced new titles for Xavier, including the “Apostle of the Indies,” implying both East and West, as well as the “Apostle to the New People” and “the Apostle of All the Christian World.” This more universalizing view of Xavier would have a strong influence on the development of his iconography in the visual arts. This paper will examine one manifestation of this constructed image of Xavier as a global saint, focusing on early modern paintings, prints, and sculptures of Xavier preaching to representatives of the four continents. This analysis will address the question of whether these continental representatives could be considered allegories of the continents and if so, how they fit into the taxonomies and history of such images. I will also examine how these images shaped viewers’ understanding of Xavier as a universal saint working to unite the four continents of the world in Christianity and bring about the ultimate global triumph of the Catholic Church.
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This article discusses an altarpiece by Luca Giordano painted for the church of San Francesco Saverio (now San Ferdinando) in Naples in 1685. Described in contemporary sources as “St. Francis Xavier baptizing the people of Japan,” the... more
This article discusses an altarpiece by Luca Giordano painted for the church of San Francesco Saverio (now San Ferdinando) in Naples in 1685. Described in contemporary sources as “St. Francis Xavier baptizing the people of Japan,” the painting reveals little about Japan or Jesuit missionary efforts in Asia; instead, the painting discloses much about how Jesuits approached their mission in Naples. Here, Jesuit missionaries found a heterogeneous environment, filled with a variety of different types of potential converts, including unruly nobles, superstitious peasants, fallen women, and a large number of Muslim slaves. Giordano’s altarpiece uses the figures of St. Francis Xavier and St. Francisco de Borja to exemplify two models for the conversions that Neapolitan Jesuits hoped to bring about—the baptism of non-Christians and the religious reform of those who had been born Christian. This article will demonstrate that Giordano’s altarpiece thematized the transformation of heterodoxy into orthodoxy, while also contributing to a Jesuit discourse that characterized Naples as being another “Indies,” an environment mired in religious heterodoxy and thus attractive to ambitious Jesuits who longed for the mission fields of far off lands.
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This paper will examine three images of iconoclasm designed by Peter Paul Rubens for the Jesuit Church in Antwerp – St. Eugenia in the Temple, St. John Chrysostom, and The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier. Through this series of paintings,... more
This paper will examine three images of iconoclasm designed by Peter Paul Rubens for the Jesuit Church in Antwerp – St. Eugenia in the Temple, St. John Chrysostom, and The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier. Through this series of paintings, Rubens embarked on an investigation of the history and roots of idolatry that is similar to Jesuit writings by authors such as Roberto de Nobili and José de Acosta. Like Rubens, these authors demonstrate that idolatry began in the ancient world with simple mistakes, such as when kings erected statues of themselves and compelled their subjects to worship them as gods. However, the passage of time and the trickery of Satan led people to forget that these images originally depicted mere mortals. Rubens shows the viewer that true believers had always opposed such idols, just as Catholics continued to oppose idolatry both within Europe and abroad on the overseas missions. In this way, Rubens’s images of iconoclasm in the Jesuit Church of Antwerp functioned as an effective rebuttal of Protestant criticisms of Catholic image veneration.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has led many art history instructors to develop new modes of teaching, radically re-thinking their approaches in order to provide flexibility to students during a difficult time and accommodate different learning... more
The COVID-19 pandemic has led many art history instructors to develop new modes of teaching, radically re-thinking their approaches in order to provide flexibility to students during a difficult time and accommodate different learning styles in an unfamiliar online environment. In this paper, I will discuss my approach to asynchronous learning in a globally oriented Renaissance course. In pre-pandemic iterations of the class, my students interrogated Renaissance historiography, asking how one can construct an art history of the Renaissance that resists boundaries and nationalist discourse and emphasizes the idea of exchange and interaction. In order to achieve the same learning outcome in the online version of the class, I abandoned the idea that the instructor should be the author of almost all of the course’s instructional materials. Although an instructor may be careful to craft materials that expand lectures past the canon and incorporate different perspectives, the result is often that the majority of course content is still expressed by the singular voice of the instructor and shaped by their cultural frameworks and field of study. Instead, I began using an online learning tool called Sutori to create interactive lectures that combined OER digital content from Smarthistory and other sources with some materials created by me, embracing a mode of instruction more akin to the act of curating. This new method of instruction, which weaves together materials created by scholars with different perspectives and decenters my own expertise, has been a more effective way to allow students to explore an expanded view of the Renaissance.
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As the Jesuit missionary enterprise expanded over the face of the globe from the Andes to India, missionaries encountered a staggering array of indigenous deities. Whether Pachamama or Shiva, Jesuits uniformly denounced the veneration of... more
As the Jesuit missionary enterprise expanded over the face of the globe from the Andes to India, missionaries encountered a staggering array of indigenous deities. Whether Pachamama or Shiva, Jesuits uniformly denounced the veneration of images of these gods as idolatry in their writings from the mission field. Texts written by Jesuit missionaries such as Roberto de Nobili in India and José de Acosta in the Spanish Americas not only condemned idol worship, but also reconstructed a history of idolatry, using passages from the Psalms and the Book of Wisdom, as well as the writings of Doctors of the Church like St. John Chrysostom and St. Thomas Aquinas.
This presentation will analyze the link between these Jesuit texts and works of art depicting the destruction of idols commissioned for Jesuit churches in Europe. Although artists likely did not personally read Acosta or De Nobili’s treatises, their images of iconoclasm engage with the same history of idolatry. These artists depicted idols that bore little resemblance to the gods of the Americas or Asia and instead represented figures constructed from the stock features of Western devils and monsters, relocated from the Biblical and pagan past to the extra-European contemporary world. This presentation will examine paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Luca Giordano, Jan Erasmus Quellinus, and Peter Sion to demonstrate how artists engaged with Jesuit ideas about history, idolatry, polytheism, image veneration, and the religious diversity of the world at large.
This presentation will analyze the link between these Jesuit texts and works of art depicting the destruction of idols commissioned for Jesuit churches in Europe. Although artists likely did not personally read Acosta or De Nobili’s treatises, their images of iconoclasm engage with the same history of idolatry. These artists depicted idols that bore little resemblance to the gods of the Americas or Asia and instead represented figures constructed from the stock features of Western devils and monsters, relocated from the Biblical and pagan past to the extra-European contemporary world. This presentation will examine paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Luca Giordano, Jan Erasmus Quellinus, and Peter Sion to demonstrate how artists engaged with Jesuit ideas about history, idolatry, polytheism, image veneration, and the religious diversity of the world at large.
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St. Francis Xavier’s mission to Asia was surprisingly well documented. Not only did the future saint send letters back to Europe, but after his death, extensive interviews were conducted in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Lisbon, and... more
St. Francis Xavier’s mission to Asia was surprisingly well documented. Not only did the future saint send letters back to Europe, but after his death, extensive interviews were conducted in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Lisbon, and Rome to collect reports about Xavier from those who had known him in life. Despite this interest in gathering reliable information, hagiographies written in Europe to drive Xavier’s canonization effort often included stories that directly contradicted the verifiable facts. In addition, artists used these hagiographies as source material for paintings and sculptures, which further disseminated knowledge of these embellished events. This paper will discuss two examples – Xavier’s supposed baptism of many kings of Asia and his miraculous acquisition of Asian languages to facilitate the teaching of the Gospel. In both of these cases, the misrepresentation of events in text and image functioned as propaganda for the Church and Iberian colonial power throughout the world. These instances shed light on what Pierre Delooz has called the real saint versus the constructed saint, the former consisting of the biographical facts of their life, the latter describing how the saint becomes remolded in a collective representation that suits the needs and desires of a community or institution.
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In 1549, St. Francis Xavier sent a letter from Malacca, mentioning that a queen of the Moluccas had converted to Christianity while he was traveling in those islands. Little is known about the baptism of this queen, who is often called... more
In 1549, St. Francis Xavier sent a letter from Malacca, mentioning that a queen of the Moluccas had converted to Christianity while he was traveling in those islands. Little is known about the baptism of this queen, who is often called Niachile Pocoraga in European sources; however, this story would later serve as a basis for Xavier’s fame as a baptizer of Asian sovereigns and images of her baptism became a part of the missionary saint’s iconography in the visual arts. This paper will focus on two images located in prominent Roman churches – one by Giovanni Battista Gaulli in Sant’Andrea al Quirinale and another by Andrea Carlone in the Gesù – and will analyze these paintings in light of the often complicated relationships Jesuit had with the Roman women they sought as supporters, proposing that the image of Niachile was crafted to present a Jesuit vision of the ideal woman.
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St. Francis’ Xavier incorrupt body arrived in Goa in 1554, a year after the Jesuit missionary’s peregrinations had been ended by his death on the island of Shangchuan. The corpse became the center of a vibrant cult and began to play a... more
St. Francis’ Xavier incorrupt body arrived in Goa in 1554, a year after the Jesuit missionary’s peregrinations had been ended by his death on the island of Shangchuan. The corpse became the center of a vibrant cult and began to play a vital role in Portuguese colonial ideology. Xavier’s body, which did not decay despite the tropical setting of his resting place, metaphorically reflected the ability of the Portuguese empire and the Catholic Church to remain incorrupt, pure, and holy in the tropics, an area of the world that Europeans characterized as prone to physical rot and moral decay. In 1614, Jesuits in Goa decided to export this miracle of incorruptibility and cut off Xavier’s right arm, sending the lower half to Rome. The upper arm was eventually separated into three parts, each of which was sent to a different Portuguese-Asian territory that was in danger of being lost to enemies, invoking Xavier’s help in preserving these areas for the Portuguese and the Church. At the same time, visual representations of Xavier’s incorrupt body and his arm relics were created throughout the global Jesuit missionary network, in places like Ecuador, Mexico, Goa, Portugal, and the Southern Netherlands. This paper will demonstrate that these paintings and prints, like the relics of Xavier, generated a discourse that endowed the entire worldwide Jesuit missionary enterprise with an aura of sanctity, while also supporting colonialist agendas by invoking the protection of the saint for Iberian interests in the East, the West, and in-between.
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Most discussion of the famous Kobe Portrait of St. Francis Xavier has revolved around questions of dating and attribution. Some art historians contend that the portrait must have been completed before 1614 when Christian missionaries were... more
Most discussion of the famous Kobe Portrait of St. Francis Xavier has revolved around questions of dating and attribution. Some art historians contend that the portrait must have been completed before 1614 when Christian missionaries were outlawed in Japan; others insist that it must have been completed after Francis Xavier’s 1622 canonization. While this paper will clarify some of the dating issues, it will largely focus on different matters. First, I will discuss the European print sources that the artist referenced when creating this image, noting that Jesuits not only exposed Japanese artists to early modern European images, but also to prints representing Byzantine and medieval icons, which profoundly influenced the production of devotional images in Japan. Second, this paper will take up the post-production life of the painting, exploring how this work of art functioned within the context of an illegal Christian religion. This image of St. Francis Xavier was undeniably Christian, unlike small sculptures of the Virgin Mary that could be disguised as the child-bearing bodhisattva Kannon, and thus had to remain secret, while still serving as an object of devotion that could bolster a precarious Christian community that could no longer be guided primarily by European priests. In order to demonstrate how the St. Francis Xavier painting could be visible while simultaneously kept hidden away, I will draw upon theories of Buddhist representation prompted by study of hibutsu (秘仏) or “hidden Buddhas,” a tradition with which Japanese Christians were likely to be very familiar.
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Scholars have stressed that reforms proposed during the Counter-Reformation, especially those related to saint making, were aimed at centralizing Church authority in the institution of the papacy. In the early decades of the seventeenth... more
Scholars have stressed that reforms proposed during the Counter-Reformation, especially those related to saint making, were aimed at centralizing Church authority in the institution of the papacy. In the early decades of the seventeenth century, attempts to venerate and create images of holy figures before their official beatification and canonization became increasingly controversial in Rome, where successive popes exerted ever stricter control over the nascent cults of would-be saints. This paper, however, will demonstrate that outside of the papal city, beyond the immediate purview of the pope and the Roman Inquisition, artists did have more freedom to experiment with innovative iconographic and visual forms when depicting potential saints. Here, I will present a cycle of paintings representing Francis Xavier, the famous Jesuit missionary of the sixteenth century, created for the sacristy of the Church of São Roque in Lisbon. Painted by André Reinoso in 1619, these paintings pre-date Xavier’s beatification by six months and his canonization by three years. Iconographically innovative, these paintings do not shy away from depicting Xavier as both a miracle-worker and a patron saint of the Portuguese Empire, demonstrating that cities like Lisbon could serve as places of experimentation in the creation of new devotional images.
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After his death, St. Francis Xavier was initially known for being the first Catholic missionary to preach in Japan. As his reputation as a miracle worker grew, so did the geographic spread of his patronage. In 1622, his canonization bull... more
After his death, St. Francis Xavier was initially known for being the first Catholic missionary to preach in Japan. As his reputation as a miracle worker grew, so did the geographic spread of his patronage. In 1622, his canonization bull referred to him as the “Apostle to the New People” and also the “New Apostle to the Indies,” not specifying East or West. After this, devotion to Francis Xavier in the Spanish Americas increased rapidly. This paper will examine the representation of Xavier as it developed in Latin America, far from his European origins and Asian mission activity, paying particular attention to how Latin American artists synthesized Asian and European sources to create Xaverian images. By examining the networks through which these images sources traveled, it becomes possible to discern an “imagined community” of devotees to Xavier in the early modern world, united by their veneration of particular Xaverian images.
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In the seventeenth century, Jesuit and mendicant reports from Japan were filled with news of European missionaries and Japanese Christians who were crucified, beheaded, and burned at the stake for their faith. These martyrs almost... more
In the seventeenth century, Jesuit and mendicant reports from Japan were filled with news of European missionaries and Japanese Christians who were crucified, beheaded, and burned at the stake for their faith. These martyrs almost immediately became the subjects of a variety of cultural productions, from theatrical dramas to paintings and prints. This paper will examine one example, Andrea Sacchi’s The Three Magdalenes, painted around the year 1634. Two of these three figures have been identified as St. Mary Magdalene and St. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi since the time of Giovanni Pietro Bellori’s description of the painting; however, the third woman, a “Magdalene of Japan,” has remained unknown. Here, I will confirm recent suggestions that she is Blessed Magdalena Hayashida, a young woman martyred in 1613 in the feudal territory of the Arima clan. With her identification known, a fuller analysis of Sacchi’s painting is now possible. Thus, we can now see how this painting celebrates two ideals of feminine sexuality promoted by the Church - – the chastity of virgin martyrs and nuns who renounce their sexual lives to mystically marry Christ and the reformed sexuality of the Magdalene. No longer unidentified, Andrea Sacchi’s Magdalena Hayashida demonstrates how the new extra-European martyrs of the early modern period were quickly incorporated into long-standing Catholic devotional paradigms, while contributing to a vision of the Church Triumphant where saints from all known continents communed together eternally.
Research Interests: Early Modern History, Seventeenth Century, Cult of Saints, Mysticism, Jesuit history, and 12 moreItalian Baroque art, Naples, The Kingdom of Naples, Early Modern Art and Visual Culture, Mary Magdalene, Female spirituality in the Middle and Modern Ages, Art and Architecture in Spanish Naples, Andrea Sacchi, Early Modern Naples, Jesuit Art and Hagiography, Japanese Christianity, and Christian Martyrs
The background of Peter Paul Rubens’s Miracles of St. Francis Xavier, painted in 1617 for the Jesuit church in Antwerp, contains a detail that has seldom been commented upon by scholars. Behind the Jesuit saint, we see stairs leading up... more
The background of Peter Paul Rubens’s Miracles of St. Francis Xavier, painted in 1617 for the Jesuit church in Antwerp, contains a detail that has seldom been commented upon by scholars. Behind the Jesuit saint, we see stairs leading up to a classical temple with a niche containing a horned Hindu idol. In the upper right, rays of light emanate from a group of heavenly figures, raining down on the idol, causing it to fall, cracking into several pieces as it crashes to the ground. After a brief discussion of the visual models of Indian gods available to Rubens in illustrations of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century travel literature, my presentation will focus on placing the image of the Hindu idol in the Miracles of St. Francis Xavier in the context of the larger decorative scheme of the Antwerp Jesuit church. Designed by Rubens in 1620 and executed by his assistants, the ceiling decoration of the upper aisle galleries and the lower aisles contains several other images of idol smashing by saints such as St. Eugenia and St. John Chrysostom. This theme of the destruction of pagan idols in the church therefore prompts several questions that I will explore in the course of my presentation. What was the importance of this theme to the Jesuits in early 17th-century Antwerp? How did Rubens’s altarpiece and aisle decorations play into disagreements between Catholics and Protestants regarding the legitimacy of the Catholic cult of saints and the use of images in Christian worship?
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For Jesuits in the early modern period, art was a tool of persuasion, wielded by missionaries in their endeavor to eliminate global religious difference. When the Jesuit order arrived in Naples, they found a windfall of potential converts... more
For Jesuits in the early modern period, art was a tool of persuasion, wielded by missionaries in their endeavor to eliminate global religious difference. When the Jesuit order arrived in Naples, they found a windfall of potential converts including prostitutes, superstitious peasants, and a sizable population of Muslim Ottoman slaves. In this presentation, I focus on seventeenth-century frescoes created by Paolo de’ Matteis for the Jesuit church of St. Francis Xavier in Naples. I argue that the theme of these frescoes is the transformation of heterodoxy into orthodoxy through the miraculous powers of Jesuit saints. For example, St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary par excellence, is promoted as a universal saint who could alleviate all ills, reflecting Jesuit efforts to channel Neapolitan devotion to unofficial local saints into centralized Vatican-sanctioned cults. Xavier is also depicted as a vanquisher of heresy, symbolized not by the usual generic allegory, but by a rare representation of Muhammad. I argue that this speaks to the Jesuits’ urgent need to convert the thousands of Muslim slaves present in Naples, for fear that these religious Others would continue to act as agents of Satan, bringing discord and crisis to a kingdom mired in dangerous heterodoxy.
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Between 1580 and 1773, thousands of Jesuits requested positions on the overseas missions. Not all of these petitions could be granted and many missionaries were sent to Naples as a consolation prize. In this paper, I demonstrate how... more
Between 1580 and 1773, thousands of Jesuits requested positions on the overseas missions. Not all of these petitions could be granted and many missionaries were sent to Naples as a consolation prize. In this paper, I demonstrate how Jesuits utilized texts and images to construct an alternative “Indies” in Naples. In particular, I focus on Luca Giordano’s St. Francis Xavier Baptizing Indians, commissioned for the church of San Francesco Saverio (1685). This painting supports a Jesuit discourse that “the Indies” were neither east nor west, but wherever people were in need of religious and cultural reform. The altarpiece allowed Jesuits who were denied the opportunity to go to Asia or Latin America to view Naples as another “Indies,” a place where they could follow Ignatius of Loyola’s directive to dedicate their lives to the “help of souls” and accomplish the Society’s goal of eradicating religious difference on a global scale.
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In this paper, I will present a summary of my research on works of art depicting St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary and first Post-Tridentine saint to have a worldwide cult. This study considers images that were made both in Europe... more
In this paper, I will present a summary of my research on works of art depicting St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary and first Post-Tridentine saint to have a worldwide cult. This study considers images that were made both in Europe and on Jesuit missions in Portuguese India, East Asia, and Latin America in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries and is the first to examine the visual representation of Xavier in the context of cross-cultural tensions, imperialism, and religious difference in an increasingly global early modern world. My research has shown that Xaverian images had an especially potent ability to shape worldviews, advance imperial ideologies, and engender conversion in the border zones of Roman Catholicism and the territories of Iberian empires. Here, I engage with important theoretical issues facing the study of early modern global art, including a reconsideration of center-periphery theory where I articulate how newly formed imagined communities, such as the transnational cult of a missionary saint, could affect the production and circulation of visual culture between metropole and colony, as well as between Rome and mission.
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On September 15, 1698, Placido Ramponi, a Florentine artist and emissary, arrived in Goa with forty-five cases filed with the pieces of a disassembled tomb that would house the remains of St. Francis Xavier. Intended for the Jesuit... more
On September 15, 1698, Placido Ramponi, a Florentine artist and emissary, arrived in Goa with forty-five cases filed with the pieces of a disassembled tomb that would house the remains of St. Francis Xavier. Intended for the Jesuit Basilica of Bom Jesus, the tomb had been commissioned by Cosimo III de’ Medici from his court sculptor and architect, Giovan Battista Foggini. This tomb project, carried out during the twilight years of the Medici dynasty, was the culmination of a sequence of attempts on the part of the rulers of Tuscany to insert themselves into the sphere of international trade and politics. In this paper, I will explore the Medici motivations behind this tomb project by placing the commission in the context of Cosimo III’s political and mercantile aspirations in the East Indies, as well as by examining precedents for the exchange of artistic knowledge and material culture between Tuscany and India. In particular, I will focus on the vibrant exchange in semiprecious stones that took place between the Medici dukes and India, as well as the Florentine export of works of art in pietre dure, prominently featured on the tomb of St. Francis Xavier. Viewing the tomb project of St. Francis Xavier as an extension of Medici imperial ambition also helps illuminate the way the Tuscan grand dukes used Florentine artistic production to speak to other imperial powers, including the Portuguese and the Mughal Empire. Commissioning a project such as the tomb of St. Francis Xavier allowed the penultimate Medici grand duke to participate on the international stage in a way that drew attention to his realm’s remaining strength – the still preeminent production of art in the grand ducal workshops. Without a large military or navy and with diminished economic resources, the transportation of art was the most practical way for Florence to make a lasting mark on the East Indies.
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Within a short period of time after their arrival in Japan in 1549, Jesuit missionaries founded dozens of schools and seminaries, including the so-called Seminary of Painters. Here, Jesuits skilled in painting, engraving, and sculpture... more
Within a short period of time after their arrival in Japan in 1549, Jesuit missionaries founded dozens of schools and seminaries, including the so-called Seminary of Painters. Here, Jesuits skilled in painting, engraving, and sculpture taught Western artistic techniques to young Japanese Christians in order to meet the demand for Christian images in newly built Japanese churches. At first glance, these paintings seem to be completed in an entirely European fashion; however, upon further examination, it becomes clear that the Jesuits were willing to accommodate certain matters of Japanese taste to make these works of art acceptable to their patrons and hosts. In this paper, I will focus on these adaptive measures, discussing modifications of materials, subject matter, and iconography in these devotional paintings, which the Jesuits employed to facilitate the acceptance of Christianity in Japan.
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The background of Peter Paul Rubens’s Miracles of St. Francis Xavier, painted in 1617 for the Jesuit church in Antwerp, contains a detail that has seldom been commented upon by scholars. Behind the Jesuit saint, we see stairs leading up... more
The background of Peter Paul Rubens’s Miracles of St. Francis Xavier, painted in 1617 for the Jesuit church in Antwerp, contains a detail that has seldom been commented upon by scholars. Behind the Jesuit saint, we see stairs leading up to a classical temple with a niche containing a horned Hindu idol. In the upper right, rays of light emanate from a group of heavenly figures, raining down on the idol, causing it to fall, cracking into several pieces as it crashes to the ground. After a brief discussion of the visual models of Indian gods available to Rubens in illustrations of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century travel literature, my presentation will focus on placing the image of the Hindu idol in the Miracles of St. Francis Xavier in the context of the larger decorative scheme of the Antwerp Jesuit church. Designed by Rubens in 1620 and executed by his assistants, the ceiling decoration of the upper aisle galleries and the lower aisles contains several other images of idol smashing by saints such as St. Eugenia and St. John Chrysostom. This theme of the destruction of pagan idols in the church therefore prompts several questions that I will explore in the course of my presentation. What was the importance of this theme to the Jesuits in early 17th-century Antwerp? How did Rubens’s altarpiece and aisle decorations play into disagreements between Catholics and Protestants regarding the legitimacy of the Catholic cult of saints and the use of images in Christian worship?
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On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians, including six Franciscan and three Jesuits missionaries, were crucified in Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the regent of Japan. In the following decades, both the Jesuits and... more
On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians, including six Franciscan and three Jesuits missionaries, were crucified in Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the regent of Japan. In the following decades, both the Jesuits and Franciscans commissioned paintings and prints commemorating this event, which marked the first persecution of Christians in Japan. While both orders used these images to cast the Nagasaki martyrdom as a repetition, continuation, and renewal of Christ’s sacrifice, I will also argue that there are significant disparities between the two groups of images, which illuminate the considerably different approaches that each order took towards missionary work and also highlight the acrimonious rivalry that existed between the Franciscans and the Jesuits in the Japanese mission field. This brief examination will demonstrate that these images of the Nagasaki Martyrdom, an event which took place on the other side of the world, in a mission as far-flung as Japan, were strongly shaped by rivalries and currents of thoughts that were central to the messages of the European Catholic missionary orders.
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Leo Steinberg famously asserted that the appearance of the nude Christ child in Renaissance art was motivated by theological considerations, serving as the ultimate evidence of the Incarnation. His study posits a steady progression from... more
Leo Steinberg famously asserted that the appearance of the nude Christ child in Renaissance art was motivated by theological considerations, serving as the ultimate evidence of the Incarnation. His study posits a steady progression from the use of iconic images that emphasize the divinity of the Christ child in the medieval period to naturalistic images that demonstrate his humanity in the Renaissance. However, he does not acknowledge that devotion to older iconic images persisted throughout the sixteenth century and was even revived in certain instances. In this paper, I examine the case of the Jesuit Seminary of Painters in Japan, where copies of Byzantine icons were regularly used as models for students who were learning to paint Christian images. When faced with the task of persuading non-believers of Christian truth on overseas missions, Jesuits clearly saw the utility of images that aimed to validate the divinity of Christ, rather than his humanity. Additionally, this type of image, where the Christ child is seen not as a wriggling, chubby naked infant, but instead as majestic, enthroned, completely clothed, and full of divine presence, may have better resonated with the Japanese public due to a strong Japanese tradition of depicting precocious divine children, such as the infant Buddha, in a similar way. This is but one example of an instance in which Jesuit missionaries took advantage of accidental convergence in religious iconography and demonstrates the order’s strong commitment to a mission strategy emphasizing flexibility and pastoral pragmatism.
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Evonne Levy has argued, based on the writings of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, that it is impossible to consider Jesuit artistic commissions to be the product of a single author or even multiple authors; instead they should be... more
Evonne Levy has argued, based on the writings of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, that it is impossible to consider Jesuit artistic commissions to be the product of a single author or even multiple authors; instead they should be thought of as a weaving together of innumerable “centers of culture.” In this presentation, I also follow Levy’s approach, identifying the various “cultural centers” that were involved in the creation of the tomb of St. Francis Xavier in the Basilica of Bom Jesus, in Goa, India, an elaborate monument that consists of a silver sarcophagus made by Goan silversmiths in the 1630s and a large polychromatic marble pedestal commissioned by Cosimo III de’ Medici in the 1680s. I have identified three such cultural centers that will come to bear on my analysis of the tomb - thwarted Medici imperial ambitions, the Portuguese Estado da Índia’s attempt to maintain an image of Goa Dourada (or Golden Goa), and the cult of St. Francis Xavier fostered by the Jesuits in Goa. Here, I connect the commissioning of the marble pedestal by Cosimo III to Medici imperial ambitions, demonstrating that the Tuscan state used intercontinental trade in semiprecious stones and the gifting of works of art featuring pietre dure mosaics as a way to engage in the process of empire building in the face of its inability to participate in large-scale Indian Ocean trade or colonialism. The interests of the state of Portuguese India and Jesuit missionaries also intersect at the site of the tomb monument; both institutions used the tomb, the relics of Xavier and the decoration of the chapel in which the mausoleum was placed to advance their own agendas. The former utilized the site to continue advancing an image of Goa Dourada, almost a century after the Portuguese empire in Asia had begun its steady decline in wealth, power, and influence. The Jesuits, however, promoted the images on the silver sarcophagus, the polychromatic brilliance of the tomb pedestal and the paintings in the chapel as a substitute for the viewing of the actual body of St. Francis Xavier, to which they had begun to restrict public access for fear that the desiccation of the saint’s so-called incorrupt body would cause devotion to Xavier to wane and his cult to be diminished.
Research Interests:
As the seventeenth century progressed and the Portuguese empire in Asia continued to diminish in terms of territory and political influence, the viceroy and other colonial officials increasingly turned to St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit... more
As the seventeenth century progressed and the Portuguese empire in Asia continued to diminish in terms of territory and political influence, the viceroy and other colonial officials increasingly turned to St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary saint and so-called Apostle of the Indies, to protect the Portuguese cause. Many of the state rituals enacted at this time centered on the saint’s incorrupt body, housed in a magnificent tomb in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa. The tomb itself has a long and complex history and in this paper, I will first discuss the oldest extant component of the tomb, a magnificent silver sarcophagus cast by local Goan silversmiths in 1636-1637. The relief sculptures on the casket depict thirty-two different scenes related to St. Francis Xavier’s life and miracles, taking place in such varied locations as Travancore, Cannanore, Malacca, Makassar, Japan, and Goa itself. I argue that when the sarcophagus was unveiled in 1637, the silver panels could have been read as an atlas, documenting the vast territorial reach of Portuguese India and the sanctification of that land through the miracles and deeds of St. Francis Xavier.
I will then discuss the addition of a sumptuous polychromatic marble pedestal for the sarcophagus, installed in 1698. This was a gift from Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and designed by his favorite court artist, Giovanni Battista Foggini. At the time of the pedestal’s installation, the meaning of the older silver sarcophagus would have changed dramatically. Almost all of the locations detailed on the casket were no longer a part of the Portuguese empire in Asia. Thus, the sarcophagus had come to serve as a reminder of the remarkable territorial reach of the Estado da Índia in the previous century, a visual memento of the power and splendor of a lost Goa Dourada. In addition, the Medici pedestal was a distinctly Florentine work of art, decorated with Florentine lilies in pietre dure, a type of mosaic using semiprecious stones that was strongly associated with Medici patronage. The four bronze relief sculptures designed by Foggini for the pedestal also depicted the life and miracles of Xavier, but lacked the specificity of the earlier Goan silver panels, transforming St. Francis Xavier from a saint who sanctified and protected the specific territory of Portuguese India into a more universal saint and the central protagonist in the Catholic Church’s drive to become a global religion with adherents all over the world.
I will then discuss the addition of a sumptuous polychromatic marble pedestal for the sarcophagus, installed in 1698. This was a gift from Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and designed by his favorite court artist, Giovanni Battista Foggini. At the time of the pedestal’s installation, the meaning of the older silver sarcophagus would have changed dramatically. Almost all of the locations detailed on the casket were no longer a part of the Portuguese empire in Asia. Thus, the sarcophagus had come to serve as a reminder of the remarkable territorial reach of the Estado da Índia in the previous century, a visual memento of the power and splendor of a lost Goa Dourada. In addition, the Medici pedestal was a distinctly Florentine work of art, decorated with Florentine lilies in pietre dure, a type of mosaic using semiprecious stones that was strongly associated with Medici patronage. The four bronze relief sculptures designed by Foggini for the pedestal also depicted the life and miracles of Xavier, but lacked the specificity of the earlier Goan silver panels, transforming St. Francis Xavier from a saint who sanctified and protected the specific territory of Portuguese India into a more universal saint and the central protagonist in the Catholic Church’s drive to become a global religion with adherents all over the world.
Research Interests: Cult of Saints, Indo-Portuguese Art, Early Modern Catholicism, Empire, Portuguese India, and 2 moreEarly Modern History - History of Art - Religious Art and Catholic Reform - Folk Art and Popular Culture - Artists and Workshop - Wood Carved and Paintings In Rural Parishes - France XVIIe-XIXe S. and St. Francis Xavier
Given the roles played by colonization, imperialism, and global movement of people and commodities in shaping the history of San Juan, Puerto Rico, our hosting location for RSA 2023, this panel takes the often emotional connection between... more
Given the roles played by colonization, imperialism, and global movement of people and commodities in shaping the history of San Juan, Puerto Rico, our hosting location for RSA 2023, this panel takes the often emotional connection between past and present as the starting point for an examination of something else that has historically been shaped by the history of colonialism: art historical pedagogy. The “global turn” in art history has brought new types of objects and new conceptual frameworks into the early modern art history classroom; however, as many of these objects have histories that are intertangled with imperialism, colonialism, and the global trade in enslaved persons, art historians of the early modern period and our students must grapple with what is often termed the “darker side” of the age. At the same time, colleges and universities are increasingly facing pressure about what should and should not be taught as part of a curriculum.
Research Interests:
RSA 2020 (April 2-4, 2020), Philadelphia Multimedia artworks and installations, as well as the concept of intermediality, have long held a prominent place in modern and contemporary art and criticism. When considered within the early... more
RSA 2020 (April 2-4, 2020), Philadelphia
Multimedia artworks and installations, as well as the concept of intermediality, have long held a prominent place in modern and contemporary art and criticism. When considered within the early modern frame, these concepts are most closely associated with seventeenth-century art, and specifically with Bernini and the bel composto. This session addresses the concept of intermediality and the “fusion of the arts” in the early modern period. We invite papers that investigate the relationship between modes and materials within the multi-component art “installation,” artists working across media and fusing different types of media, and the questions which arise regarding the design, production and function(s) of such works. Topics should be situated within the time frame of roughly 1300 to 1700, and can focus on a single region or several regions; can examine a single work or installation, ephemeral, permanent, or both; and can address a single artist or several artists. Given that many works have complex and even inter-regional patronage and production histories, what qualifies a bel composto? Is it something designed or premeditated, or can it be something which occurs through happenstance? Papers can address, but need not be confined to, any or all of the following:
• Is it possible to identify when intermedial or multimedial art practice begins, and with which works?
• How do such works function within sacred or secular contexts?
• What is the role of the viewer within the multi-component system?
• What does a “fusion of the arts’’ bring to bear on the paragone, the visual arts as traditionally understood?
• What are the respective roles of architecture, painting, and sculpture within such works?
• How do these works make use of space and light?
• How do ephemeral and permanent modes of art production relate to each other within the intermedial context?
• How do we address the issue of intentionality: what happens, for example, when a multimedia work is produced more by “accident” than by design?
• How does the global turn in the study of early modern art change our approaches to multi-component works of art, especially in circumstances when each component was created in a different region, or even continent?
• Is there really such as thing as the bel composto?
Please send the following to Andrew Horn (Andrew.Horn@ed.ac.uk) and Rachel Miller (Rachel.miller@csus.edu) by July 18, 2019:
- Title (15-word maximum)
- Abstract (150-word maximum)
- Keywords
- Shortened CV including name, current affiliation, email address, and PhD completion date (5-page maximum)
Multimedia artworks and installations, as well as the concept of intermediality, have long held a prominent place in modern and contemporary art and criticism. When considered within the early modern frame, these concepts are most closely associated with seventeenth-century art, and specifically with Bernini and the bel composto. This session addresses the concept of intermediality and the “fusion of the arts” in the early modern period. We invite papers that investigate the relationship between modes and materials within the multi-component art “installation,” artists working across media and fusing different types of media, and the questions which arise regarding the design, production and function(s) of such works. Topics should be situated within the time frame of roughly 1300 to 1700, and can focus on a single region or several regions; can examine a single work or installation, ephemeral, permanent, or both; and can address a single artist or several artists. Given that many works have complex and even inter-regional patronage and production histories, what qualifies a bel composto? Is it something designed or premeditated, or can it be something which occurs through happenstance? Papers can address, but need not be confined to, any or all of the following:
• Is it possible to identify when intermedial or multimedial art practice begins, and with which works?
• How do such works function within sacred or secular contexts?
• What is the role of the viewer within the multi-component system?
• What does a “fusion of the arts’’ bring to bear on the paragone, the visual arts as traditionally understood?
• What are the respective roles of architecture, painting, and sculpture within such works?
• How do these works make use of space and light?
• How do ephemeral and permanent modes of art production relate to each other within the intermedial context?
• How do we address the issue of intentionality: what happens, for example, when a multimedia work is produced more by “accident” than by design?
• How does the global turn in the study of early modern art change our approaches to multi-component works of art, especially in circumstances when each component was created in a different region, or even continent?
• Is there really such as thing as the bel composto?
Please send the following to Andrew Horn (Andrew.Horn@ed.ac.uk) and Rachel Miller (Rachel.miller@csus.edu) by July 18, 2019:
- Title (15-word maximum)
- Abstract (150-word maximum)
- Keywords
- Shortened CV including name, current affiliation, email address, and PhD completion date (5-page maximum)
Research Interests:
In the 2011 book, Rethinking the Baroque, editor Helen Hills and the contributing authors proposed to both interrogate and re-energize the study of the baroque, a much-maligned concept and one Hills termed the " grit in the oyster of art... more
In the 2011 book, Rethinking the Baroque, editor Helen Hills and the contributing authors proposed to both interrogate and re-energize the study of the baroque, a much-maligned concept and one Hills termed the " grit in the oyster of art history. " The authors sought to come to grips with the term from a wide array of chronological and methodological approaches, problematizing and reshaping the landscape of inquiry. By contrast, the following year Gauvin Bailey's Baroque and Rococo re-entrenched the Baroque as a category for study, seeing it as a moment of unified global exuberance. More than five years later, however, it is unclear where these two divergent approaches have left researchers and teachers. In what ways is the Baroque continuing to be critically reevaluated and used as an interpretive tool? Where does the study of Baroque art currently stand and where is it going, especially in relation to the rising emphasis on the " Early Modern " ? What is at stake in surrendering the Baroque in favor of modernity? Hills herself asked " Can the apparent contradictions between periodization and critical strategy be reconciled? " In this panel, we seek to engage with and extend these questions. This session will examine the utility of the 'Baroque' in several different ways. First, we are interested in historical case studies of objects, spaces, and experiences that engage with or challenge the Baroque style in new and exciting ways. We are open to research that argues for the preservation of the term as a site of legitimate scholarly discourse or provides a compelling argument to reject it. Second, we seek approaches that deal with the historiography of the Baroque, but also with the state of the field, critically interrogating the risks and benefits of how we discuss periodization and the problems inherent in a linear approach to art historical inquiry. Third, we seek to include papers that address what is at stake pedagogically when dealing with the period 1580-1730. How do educators approach the paradox of the Baroque at a time when the term itself has been challenged and reassessed in ways that are not often reflected in standard undergraduate course offerings and textbooks? How do we leverage these complex discussions into more fruitful classroom discourse? Papers need not deal with all three prongs of inquiry though crossover is encouraged. Please submit your paper proposal by May 15 to Saskia Beranek (srb43@pitt.edu) and Rachel Miller (Rachel.miller@csus.edu). Proposals must include the following: • Name, affiliation, email address • Paper title • Abstract (250-word maximum) • Keywords • CV (1 page)
Research Interests:
This panel invites papers that address the role that Catholic missionaries played in facilitating artistic and cultural interaction between Europe and overseas contacts in Asia and the Americas, two sites of active missionary activity in... more
This panel invites papers that address the role that Catholic missionaries played in facilitating artistic and cultural interaction between Europe and overseas contacts in Asia and the Americas, two sites of active missionary activity in the early modern period. In this panel, we will invite a conversation that focuses on how art moved through the global missionary network of the Catholic Church from Europe to the Americas and Asia. We are also interested in papers that demonstrate the role played by missionaries in facilitating direct cross-cultural interaction between Asia and the Americas. Possible paper topics include, but are not limited, to the following:
• The movement of artists and works of art as facilitated by missionaries
• The founding of missionary art schools and the exportation of students' art works
• Missionaries as facilitators of intercontinental artistic commissions
• The transmission of architectural ideas through missionary building projects
• Missionaries' involvement in the trade of art objects
• Artists who were members of missionary orders and were active in Asia and/or the Americas
Please submit your paper proposal by May 20 to Christa Irwin (irwin@marywood.edu) and Rachel Miller (Rachel.miller@csus.edu). Proposals must include the following:
• Name, affiliation, email address
• Paper title
• Abstract (250-word maximum)
• Keywords
• CV (1 page)
• The movement of artists and works of art as facilitated by missionaries
• The founding of missionary art schools and the exportation of students' art works
• Missionaries as facilitators of intercontinental artistic commissions
• The transmission of architectural ideas through missionary building projects
• Missionaries' involvement in the trade of art objects
• Artists who were members of missionary orders and were active in Asia and/or the Americas
Please submit your paper proposal by May 20 to Christa Irwin (irwin@marywood.edu) and Rachel Miller (Rachel.miller@csus.edu). Proposals must include the following:
• Name, affiliation, email address
• Paper title
• Abstract (250-word maximum)
• Keywords
• CV (1 page)