This reviewer, having studied mainly Italian confraternities over many decades, most enthusiastically welcomes this richly illustrated collection of essays for its geographical coverage, contributions from many young scholars, and the quality of their research and writing. The clear and helpful editorial introduction contextualizes the fifteen chapters. Most contributors are developing from their doctoral theses; only the editor and four others have yet produced monographs. Many essays move outside the Italian scene that has dominated confraternity studies, with Anu Mänd on Tallin, Ellen Decraene covering Aalst (in Flanders), Arie van Steensel comparing Norwich and Leiden confraternities, Laura Dierksmeier on colonial Mexico, Cormac Begadon on Ireland, Caroline Blondeau-Morizot investigating Counter-Reformation Rouen, and Ellen Dooley considering a leading Seville Hermandad. Those dealing with the Italian scene elucidate activities in less well-known places, as processions in Tivoli (Rebekah Perry) and Pavia (Andrew Chen), processions between stational crosses in Milan (Pamela Stewart), and the artistic competition between leading oratories in Palermo (Danielle Carrabino). Other authors revisit well-studied confraternities but from new aspects. Barbara Wisch, the only senior scholar, looks at the Cappella della Separazione used by Rome’s archconfraternity della SS. Trinità, and the paintings concerning saints Peter and Paul. Douglas Dow builds on his monograph Apostolic Iconography and Florentine Confraternities (2014) in an analysis of the commissioning, execution, meaning, and impact of Giovanbattista Mossi’s Flagellation of Christ for the company of San Giovanni Battista dello Scalzo. Meryl Bailey, in dealing with Venice’s Scuola di San Fantin, concentrates on a painted wooden crucifix, its importance within the Scuola, but also its use in processions as part of their charitable functions comforting the condemned and escorting them through the city before execution. Kira Maye Albinsky, writing when still a PhD candidate, takes us into one of my favorite Roman confraternity buildings, the Oratory of SS. Crocefisso. Considering the frescoes as “Performance of Devotion,” telling the stories around the true cross’s rediscovery and miraculous effects, she argues well against some critics that the scenes have emotional appeal beyond the elite, within the new post-Tridentine reform spirit; and notes that this confraternity unusually includes scenes from its own history, reminding members of their duties.
As Presciutti puts it, “this book describes the dialectic between bodies and spaces” (4). The spaces could be chapels or the streets; the bodies a select social group, or a broad range of parochial society. The purpose of the interactions varies. Both medieval and post-Trent confraternities had to balance concerns for piety or devotion and charity. Those originally concentrating on flagellant devotion, as in Pavia, came to pay more attention to charity. Charity might be mostly for brothers, sisters, and family (as in Norwich), for the wider community (as in hospitals, notably in Tivoli), or for burying the neglected or executed (with San Fantin). The essays bring out the blurred definitions of confraternity, and the interconnections with other lay institutions such as guilds and companies. Carrabino notes the evolution in Palermo from confraternities of compagnie, which met more frequently, were better organized, had more decorum, and dedicated to a particular example of piety (344); in Tallin, religious confraternities and trade organizations were gilded. In Tivoli, clearly distinguished guilds and confraternities cooperated over the notable processions, but the latter also concentrated on hospital charity. Social composition varied. In Aalst, women played more prominent roles, numerically as givers and receivers. The Mexican confraternities acted as social intermediaries, caring for marginal groups and outsiders. In contrast, the Palermo compagnie were largely for elites. They played dominant, competitive roles in public processions, and they competed in decorating their chapels lavishly, employing foreign artists like Van Dyck. We receive many insights into diverse uses of theatrical processions. Those in Pavia and Tivoli encompass the whole city by using different routes. Tivoli’s “Inchinata” procession linked the numerous hospitals (many to help pilgrims), and, as Perry interestingly argues, provided an “allegorical journey in which the Savior triptych took on the didactic narrative role of pious wandering stranger or pilgrim” (145). San Fantin turned some Venetian executions into theatrical events. The Milan Santa Croce processions round the stations of the cross, where members came to worship, provided a via crucis with staged events and sculpture providing “Another Jerusalem” (239–42). Visual propaganda is found within major oratories and chapels, shown in the well-illustrated chapters on Rome’s SS. Crocefisso, Palermo’s oratories, and Rouen’s Brotherhood of the Trépassés where, like SS. Crocefisso, the confraternity incorporated its own history within biblical exposition, in stained-glass storytelling.
