CFP: Patronage as Evidence for Early Modern Catholic Reform

This panel will engage with the possibility of examining the permeation of reform ideas through patronage. Whether the artistic patronage of the ecclesiastical and lay elite or the community patronage of altars and confraternities in rural parishes, how early modern Catholics chose to spend their money and devotional energy within the Church can tell us something about the culture of early modern Catholicism. Particularly in the growing popularity of “post-Tridentine” saints and devotions, historians and art historians can see to what extent the official reform goals of the Catholic Church spread among both elite and non-elite Catholics from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. The panel will focus on visual and historical evidence for the permeation of reformed Catholic ideas by examining confraternities, devotion to new saints, new devotional activities, parochial and altar dedications, and artistic commissions. Submissions from all geographical areas within the Catholic World from the 16th-18th centuries are welcome.

We invite submissions of abstracts engaging with the spread or permeation of Catholic reform through patronage. Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words and a brief CV to Celeste McNamara (celeste.mcnamarau.northwestern.edu) and Vesna Kamin Kajfez (vesna.kaminkajfezgmail.com) by June 5, 2013.