Early modern efforts to reinvigorate the diverse plethora of Marian sculptures and paintings reflect the enduring position of the Virgin in both Catholic and Protestant forms of worship. Artists transformed and re-created Lucan icons through referential and innovative acts of reframing. Simultaneously, the coronation of images of the Virgin and Child within Catholic cult sites emblematizes the growing trend for normative presentations of the Virgin Mary.

This conference seeks to explore the ways in which these alterations affected devotional interactions and the cult of images in the early modern era. Contributions include cases of coronation, restoration and reframing of Marian images (including Byzantine or medieval icons, Trecento and Quattrocento imagery, and early modern designs) in major and minor artistic and cultic centers across early modern Europe. By examining cult imagery of the Virgin Mary in what has been defined as the age of art, this conference explores the local re-appropriations and the visual norms of sacred representations throughout the early modern period.

Program

Day 1

Friday, 7 December

13:00 – Welcome

13.30-14:00

Chiara Franceschini, LMU München;  Erin Giffin, LMU München. Introduction

14:00-15:00 – Paper Madonnas

Margherita Clavarino, The Warburg Institute. “The Ecclesiastical Enshrinement of Miraculous Prints in Early Modern Emilia-Romagna”

Sanja Cvetnic, University of Zagreb. “Cartacea Deiparae Virginis ab igne servata: The Triumph of Our Lady of Trsat (Croatia)”

15:00-15:30 – Coffee break

15:30-17:00 – Cut and Paste

Isabella Augart, Universität Hamburg. “Framing pictures. Altarpieces with Embedded Miraculous Images in Early Modern Italy”

Gloria de Liberali, University of Washington. “The Madonna del Baraccano. Reworking and Reframing a Marian Image in Early Modern Bologna”

Michele Danieli, Università di Bologna. “Framed Miracles. Madonne and Frontali in Bologna in the 16th Century”

17:00-17:30 – Coffee break

17:30-19:00 – Reframing Roman Madonnas

Alison Fleming, Winston-Salem State University. “The Society of Jesus and a New Role for the Madonna della Strada”

 Valerio Mezzolani, Sapienza Università di Roma. “The Madonna della Febbre and the Madonna dei Monti in the Age of Urban VIII: New Frameworks and Old Identities for a Renovated Rome”

 Jeffrey Fraiman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The Icon Next Door: Avanzino Nucci’s translation of the Madonna della Clemenza for San Calisto in Trastevere”

19.30 – Dinner

Day 2

Saturday, 8 December

9:00-10:30 – Preservation and Destruction

Ester Brunet, ISSR S. Pietro Martire, Verona. “Reframing Madonnas in Venice: The Virgin of Loreto in the Church of San Polo”

Grace Harpster, Columbia University. “Decorum and Display: Conserving and Restoring Miraculous Images in Post-Tridentine Milan”

Fabrizio Federici, Bibliotheca Hertziana. “From one Family Chapel to Another: The Madonna by Pinturicchio in Massa”

10:30-11:00 – Coffee break

11:00-12:30 – Light and Movement

Johannes Gebhardt, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. “Revealing Sacred Images: Giovan Battista Salvi’s Mater Salvatoris in the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini e Convalescenti in Rome”

Minou Schraven, University of Amsterdam. “Pius V, the Dutch Revolt and the Medals of Our Lady of Halle From Pilgrim Badge to the Invention of the Portable Indulgenced Object”

Vera Henkelmann, Independent Scholar, Eschweiler. “Mary in the Air: The Floating Maria Apocalyptica and Queen of Heaven”

12:30-13:30 – Lunch

13:30-15:30 – Reframing Archaism

Lise Constant, Université Catholique de Louvain. “Representation and Reframing of Miraculous Statues of the Virgin in the Southern Netherlands”

Katharina Schüppel, TU Dortmund. “Reframing a Medieval Cult Image in Premodern Times: The Peformative and Material Contexts of the Thuir Madonna in the 16th century and beyond”

Cécile Vincent-Cassy, Université Paris 13. “Reframing a Local Worship: The ‘Portrait’ of the Virgen de los Desamparados of Valencia in the Royal Convent of the Descalzas Reales, Madrid (1644)”

Giancarla Periti, University of Toronto. “The Life and Afterlife of Ravenna’s Madonna Greca Icon”

15:30-16:30: Common Discussion and Closure