Human bodies were particularly important ‘things’ in the early modern material world. But bodies, of course, were something more than mere material things, and the nature of their materiality was contested and debated. The complexity of views of the material body was galvanized by the mutability of bodies, whether through ageing, behaviour, body care or death. Religious beliefs and religious change shaped understandings of bodily materiality. Dead bodies raised particular questions. How did the body and its meanings change after death? How could the physical place of the dead body be reconciled with religious, political, social and family needs?

This essay examines two interconnected dimensions of the materiality of death in early modern Venice: the complex attitudes of the living to corpses, and the significant role which material objects played in the transition of the body from deathbed to burial place. Certain funerary and exhumation practices suggest that the physical body lost its significance at the moment of death, and that attention shifted to the fate of the soul. Yet other practices indicate that the dead body retained an importance for the Catholics who comprised the vast majority of the population of early modern Venice. The significance of material remains is highlighted by the careful consideration which was given to where bodies were buried, as well as by practices such as embalming.