Too Many Wounds: Innocenzo da Petralia's Excessive Crucifixes and the Normative Image

This chapter focuses on the significance of an inquisitorial case-study concerning a series of hyperrealistic crucifixes made by the Sicilian sculptor Innocenzo da Petralia around 1637-38 for the development of a study on the normativity of sacred images. For such a study, this case is extremely important, not only because it concerns the central image of Christianity, but also because it is one of the few inquisitorial trials into the work of a sculptor, if not the only one we know at presen...

Images as Norms in Europe and Beyond: A Research Program

Early modern objects, images and artworks often served as nodes of discussion and contestation. If images were sometimes contested by external and often competing agencies (religious and secular authorities, image theoreticians, inquisitions, or single individuals), artists and objects were often just as likely to impose their own rules and standards through the continuation or contestation of established visual traditions, styles, iconographies, materialities, reproductions and reframings. C...

Antiquities in Company: the Birth of the Collection / Antichità in compagnia: nasce la collezione

A Splendid Shrine for an Ugly Image: Visual Interactions in the Salviati Chapel at San Gregorio al Celio

This essay examines the history and decoration of the Salviati Chapel at San Gregorio al Celio in Rome as the repository of an image of the Virgin and in relation to two other chapels created by the same patron (Antonio Maria Salviati) in the church of San Giacomo in Augusta. In considering this dialogue among the chapels, I analyze the rationale behind the project at San Gregorio and its purpose to valorize antique images, reconstructing the particular design and function in the space of the...