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 present. A close analysis of the Petralia case provides art historians with new tools, viewpoints, and historical language to study in new ways the tensions between different types of visual norms, emotions, and artistic techniques, in particular those through which an artist could push the limits of realistic effects. It also provides new material for a reflection around the notion of the visual norm. This article, and the edited book in which it appears, is part of a larger series of publications which form part of the outputs of the ERC Project SACRIMA, The Normativity of Sacred Images in Early Modern Europe, for which see at: www.sacrima.eu.