Italy by way of India : translating art and devotion in the early modern world

Author:

Benay, Erin E.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Imprint:

Turnhout : Harvey Miller, 2022 and ©2021

Subject:

India, South - Church history
Thomas, - Apostle, Saint, - active 1st century - Influence
India - Relations - Italy - History
Italy - Relations - India - History
Christian art and symbolism - India, South

ISBN:

9781912554775 and 1912554771

Series:

Studies in medieval and early Renaissance art history

Description:

202 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), maps ; 29 cm

Bibliographic Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-196) and index

Contents:

Translating saints -- An apostle in India -- Saint Thomas and the making of Christianity in southern India. Re-situating Christianity in India ; Thomas, builder of churches ; The cross and the lotus ; Darśan in the church ; The reform of Thomas Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -- Indian Christian art in the age of colonialism. Devotional objects in churches ; Devotional objects for domestic use -- Possessing India. Indian things in Italy ; Shopping in India ; Putting Saint Thomas on the map ; Bringing Saint Thomas's India to Florence ; Experiencing Indian objects in the Medici collections -- An Indian saint in Italy. The deaths of Saint Thomas ; First translation ; Mistranslation

Summary:

"Italy by Way of India recovers peripheral narratives of image-making from the margins of cultural exchange between India and Italy during early modernity and promotes indigenous artists as central to the construction of Christian art in India and to the representation of India in Europe"-- Provided by publisher and "The return of a saint's body to its rightful resting place was an event of civic and spiritual significance retold in Medieval sources and substantiated by artistic commissions. Legends of Saint Thomas Apostle, for instance, claimed that the martyred saint had been miraculously transported from India to Italy during the thirteenth century. However, Saint Thomas's purported resting place in Ortona, Italy did not become a major stopping point on pilgrimage or exploration routes, nor did this event punctuate frescoed life cycles or become a subject for Renaissance altarpieces as one would expect. Instead, the site of the apostle's burial in Chennai, India has flourished as a terminus of religious pilgrimage, where a multifaceted visual tradition emerged, and where a vibrant local cult of "Thomas Christians" remains to this day. An unlikely destination on the edge of the "known" world thus became a surprising source of early modern Christian piety. By studying the art and texts associated with this little-known cult, this book disrupts assumptions about how knowledge of Asia took shape during the Renaissance and challenges art historical paradigms in which art was crafted by locals merely to be exported, collected, and consumed by curious European patrons. In so doing, Italy by Way of India proposes that we redefine the parameters of early modern visual culture to account for the ways that global mobility and the circulation of objects profoundly influence how cultures see and know each other as well as themselves"-- Dust jacket

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

BR1155 .B46 2022

Available

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