Art Moves explores material culture during processions in Renaissance Perugia: apparel, maces, candles, banners, flags, canopies, statues, and images. It specifically examines the relationship between persons and things—how things were handled, acquired, and viewed. Rihouet shows that objects were not mere accessories but intrinsically important for their evoked power during processions. Objects enhanced processions’ symbolic charge and reinforced emotions; they were the real constituents of rituals. A cortege devoid of objects was inconceivable. Because of the need to control ritual space, ephemeral paraphernalia raises issues of identity and hierarchy in premodern times. Variegated sources such as chronicles and diaries, religious injunctions, guild regulations, and city statutes complete this otherwise beautifully illustrated book. Art Moves balances well pictorial description, historical context, scholarly theory, and images. Rihouet sets the premise of her argument, that rituals may or may not reconstruct the social fabric, by stressing that in medieval times the clergy handled liturgical paraphernalia; in Renaissance times, it was the laity who evoked civic religion during processions; and in post-Tridentine times, processions became the prerogative of the clergy, engaged in the spiritual purification of the city.
Chapter 1, “Civic Glamour on the Move,” presents how the clergy led processions but organization was in the hands of lay governments. During the Ercolano festival, priors of Perugia controlled the expense for the processions. Secular government took advantage of a religious framework to celebrate civic identity and social unity with the help of indispensable artifacts. A chaotic society was transformed into an orderly social body through flags and banners, which became symbols of the civic government's responsibility to protect its citizens. Processions could only be successful if bel ordine (beautiful order) was achieved—i.e., special clothing, maces, flags, banners, and wax were present. But beautiful order was based as well on exclusion, especially of women parading at the end of a cortege, but also by not allowing the poor, sick, and non-Christians to participate at all.
Chapter 2, “Candles,” reveals that the most recurrent and ephemeral processional items of medieval and Renaissance times were candles, which were not mere commodities but symbols of power since they evoked purity, piety, and were held according to social rank and gender hierarchy. Candlelight processions (luminarie) were about collective movements. Much of the donated wax was paid for by the local government. Wax was an intrinsic part of the dynamics of “civic religion” (80). It was valuable and could be offered as a tribute by a subjected town. Wax products were the most important commodity sold by pharmacists around 1500. Chapter 3, “The Flamboyance of Death,” scrutinizes the funeral of Malatesta Baglioni. Here clothing and heraldic trappings were the objects paraded through Perugia. Funerals were the most familiar types of public processions, and those of high-ranking citizens escaped sumptuary laws. Parish funerals offered a form of death management that stressed neighborhood ties. The ars moriendi of the elite offered a complex spatial agenda that turned funerals into lavish events. Because these rites of passage formed emotional communities, Rihouet concludes that outbursts of emotion were encouraged—hence, elite funerals were socially constructed.
Chapter 4, “The Sovereign's Progress,” examines distinguished visitors’ entrance into the city as parades worthy of Roman triumphs. Because Perugia belonged to the papal estates, the city put on a show of great scale for popes’ entrances. Pageantry aimed at renewing papal benevolence toward the city's communal regime. The portable objects used were the city keys, statues, and a canopy. Rihouet maintains that such objects provided an anti-structure while sharing a feeling of solidarity. The baldachin was perceived as a sign of honor and prestige to the members of the local aristocracy who carried it, but was also a semiotic system that functioned as Perugia's political submission to Rome. Chapter 5, “Civic Processions and the Power of Banners,” shows how images of saints were used during times of distress, such as war, pestilence, and conflagration. Collective demonstrations of repentance, confession, and communion sought to purify the urban space. Because objects elicited wonder, people paraded Mary dressed in a luxurious dress of gold cloth and velvet cloak to stress her intercessory power for the city. The most important relic paraded in Perugia was the betrothal ring of the Virgin. Relics, banners, icons, incense, and statues were used as strategies of purification, while the city highlighted the “praying agents”: the clergy, confraternities, and flagellants (172). Chapter 6, “The Extraordinary Relic-Transfer of 1609,” examines the triple translation of Perugian saints whose impresario was Bishop Comitoli. Visual focus was on the clergy, since legates, magistrates, guilds, students, seminarians, and women were missing from the procession. Only the canopy was carried by lay elite. Unsurprisingly, Rihouet notes that the bishops’ interests were at odds with secular authorities.
I recommend this book for its high-quality research, well-documented argument, and beautiful color illustrations. Scholars interested in the Italian Renaissance, art history, anthropology and rituals, and European history in general will find it enlightening.
