Confraternities in Southern Italy: Art, Politics, and Religion (1100-1800)

Confraternities in Southern Italy: Art, Politics, and Religion (1100-1800)Overview Confraternity studies has been one of the most innovative and active fields of scholarly inquiry in the last several decades, yet few scholars have ventured beyond the traditional focus on northern Italian communities. This ambitious volume addresses the historical and historiographical origins of these scholarly biases, introduces the vibrant yet understudied world of southern Italian confraternities, and provides many suggestions for areas

Overview

Fifteen essays by leading Italian scholars investigate medieval and early modern religious confraternities in Naples, several mainland regions, and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. The result is not only the first book in English to examine southern Italian confraternities, but also the most wide-ranging chronological and geographic survey in any language. The collection makes a significant contribution to confraternity studies and will interest scholars of art, religion, lay sociability, and charitable institutions in Italy, Europe, and the Mediterranean.

David D’Andrea is a Professor of History at Oklahoma State University. In addition to his monograph, Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The Hospital of Treviso, 1400-1530 (Rochester, 2007), he has published widely on confraternities, charitable organizations, and miracles in early modern Italy.

Salvatore Marino is a lecturer of Medieval History at the University of Barcelona. In addition to his main monograph, Ospedali e città nel Regno di Napoli (Florence, 2014), he has published several works on charitable institutions, confraternities, and childhood in late medieval Catalonia and Italy.

579 pp., 101 ill.
ISBN: 978-0-7727-2220-1 
Published: 2022

Contents

David D’Andrea and Salvatore Marino, "Introduction"

Marco Piana, "The Language(s) of Southern Italian Confraternities: A Glossary of Terms"

Part I. Naples

1. Stefano D’Ovidio, "Sacred Imagery, Confraternities, and Urban Space in Medieval Naples"
2. Luciana Mocciola, "The Art of Power: The Confraternity of Santa Marta in Naples during the Reign of the Angiò-Durazzo (1381–1425)"
3. Giovanni Lombardi, "Chivalric Ideals and Popular Piety in an Early Modern Metropolis: The Confraternita dei Pellegrini and its Hospital"
4. Elisa Novi Chavarria and Ida Mauro, "'Spanish' Confraternities in Early Modern Naples"

Part II. Southern Italian Mainland

5. Gemma T. Colesanti and Eleni Sakellariou, "Confraternities in Medieval Benevento"
6. Salvatore Marino, "Medieval Confraternities in Abruzzo"
7. Valeria Cocozza, "Confraternities in Abruzzo and Molise between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries"
8. Giulio Sodano, "Religious Sociability in Early Modern Terra di Lavoro"
9. David D’Andrea, "Confraternities and Historical Memory in the Principato Citra"
10. Mirella Vera Mafrici, "The Religion of the Laity: The Confraternities of Reggio in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries"
11. Angela Carbone, "An Early Modern Apulian Confraternity: The Real Monte di Pietà in Barletta (ca. 16th–18th Centuries)"
12. Paola Avallone and Raffaella Salvemini, "Beyond the Capital: An Eighteenth-Century Survey of Charitable Institutions in the Kingdom of Naples"

Part III. Southern Italian Islands

13. Vita Russo and Daniela Santoro, "Medieval Confraternities in Palermo"
14. Salvatore Bottari and Alessandro Abbate, "Confraternities and Public Display in Messina: From Antonello da Messina to the Arciconfraternita degli Azzurri and the Arciconfraternita dei Rossi"
15. Mariangela Rapetti, "Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities in Sardinia"

Reviews

“This fascinating anthology, an important addition to the vibrant literature on confraternities in late medieval and early modern Europe, shines a welcome light on the long-neglected region of Southern Italy. The essays collected here, written by a range of experts on the various local contexts, reveal the rich tapestry of confraternal life across the Mezzogiorno, from the bustling metropolises of Naples and Palermo to the small towns of Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, and beyond.”— Diana Bullen Presciutti, University of Essex

“... the very relevant aims of this book and its interesting case studies are an important addition to studies not just of the Italian south but on early modern Italy in general.”— Martin Nixon, Zayed University, Dubai

“This ground-breaking collection–the first study in English of confraternities in southern Italy–shatters old stereotypes of north and south and opens new questions about social kinship. Art, politics, and religion braid together in comparative studies that set the region’s distinctive forms into shifting peninsular and Mediterranean contexts from the medieval to early modern periods. Truly fascinating and highly recommended.”— Nicholas Terpstra, University of Toronto