Book contents
- Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art
- Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- One Introduction
- Two The Vita Icon Reimagined: New (and Old) Saints, New (and Old) Miracles
- Three Storytelling with Saints: Pictorial Narrative and Viewing Experience
- Four Girls in Trouble: Gendering Possession and Exorcism
- Five Assault, Amputation, Absolution: Visualizing the Power of Confession
- Six Thinking with Julian: Marital Violence and Elite Masculinity
- Seven Bernardino the Peacemaker: Visual Hagiography and Factional Violence
- Eight Cannibal Mothers: Picturing Madness and Maternal Infanticide
- Nine Making Innocence Visible (and Audible) in the Basilica del Santo
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Five - Assault, Amputation, Absolution: Visualizing the Power of Confession
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2023
- Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art
- Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- One Introduction
- Two The Vita Icon Reimagined: New (and Old) Saints, New (and Old) Miracles
- Three Storytelling with Saints: Pictorial Narrative and Viewing Experience
- Four Girls in Trouble: Gendering Possession and Exorcism
- Five Assault, Amputation, Absolution: Visualizing the Power of Confession
- Six Thinking with Julian: Marital Violence and Elite Masculinity
- Seven Bernardino the Peacemaker: Visual Hagiography and Factional Violence
- Eight Cannibal Mothers: Picturing Madness and Maternal Infanticide
- Nine Making Innocence Visible (and Audible) in the Basilica del Santo
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
On May 16, 1492 in Venice, Matteo Capcasa published the first illustrated edition of the Italian translation of Jacobus de Voragine’s thirteenth-century compendium of saints’ lives, known as the Golden Legend.1 The Italian edition, edited and translated by Niccolò Manerbi, was printed at least eleven times between 1475 and 1499, with the final five editions illustrated.2 In the illustrated versions, each saint is assigned a single woodcut illustration, one meant to best encapsulate his or her life in one or two scenes. Francis of Assisi, for example, is shown receiving the stigmata. Peter Martyr is represented by a scene of his brutal murder at the hands of heretical assassins. Martin of Tours is accorded two scenes: dividing his cloak with a beggar and receiving his bishopric. Although there is some variation among the editions, especially between those printed in Venice and those printed in Milan, for most saints the same (or similar) images appear in each of the five illustrated printings.
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- Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art , pp. 153 - 187Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023