Call for papers

Renaissance Society of America Conference
Venice, 8-10 April 2010

Panel title:
Ornament and Devotion in Early Modern Church Architecture

Discussions on the appropriate degree of ornamentation of churches and
the role of ornaments in the stimulation of piety and devotion are as
old as Christianity. The religious struggles of the 16th and 17th
centuries seem to have reinvigorated these debates, not in the least
because the building of new Saint Peter's emerged as a crucial case in
point for the reformers. This and many other examples seem to suggest
that reformed churches or religious groups (within or without the
Catholic Church) repressed the use of ornaments and splendour out of
fear of vanity, idolatry and superstition, while the art and
architecture of the Catholic counter-reformation excelled in
magnificence. Recent historiography has shown that the picture is much
more complex, and that many views on ornament and religiosity often
existed side by side.

This session would like to examine this issue further by inviting papers
that deal with the continuities, ruptures and changes in the practices
and debates concerning ornament in religious architecture. We are
particularly interested in the following questions: to what extent were
Early Modern discussions on ornament in religious architecture indebted
to Early Christian or Medieval ideas? Do the religious struggles of the
16th and 17th centuries introduce new concepts and uses of ornament? Are
views on ornament in religious architecture consistently related to
devotion, piety and religiosity, or do they become dissociated from
religion? Which functions, meanings or agencies are ascribed to
architectural ornament and splendour in a religious context? Are
religious views of ornament conceptualized, and if so, in which
discourses? Or are they shaped by devotional and other practices?

Please send abstracts (150 words) and a short C.V. to both Maarten
Delbeke (maarten.delbekeugent.be) and Anne-Françoise Morel
(annefrancoise.morelugent.be) by 1st of May.