Publicación/Publication- The Land of Devotion

Acaba de publicarse, en la editorial italiana Viella, el último libro del historiador italiano Pasquale Palmieri, titulado The Land of Devotion. Saints, Politics and Media Culture in 18th Century Italy. El libro forma parte de una línea de investigación más amplia que el autor ha dedicado a la santidad y la celebridad en Italia de finales de la edad moderna. La obra puede descargarse en archivo de pdf en la página web de la editorial. El resumen y el índice de la misma pueden leerse aquí abajo.

Vient de paraître, chez l’éditeur italien Viella, le dernier livre de l’historien italien Pasquale Palmieri, sous le titre The Land of Devotion. Saints, Politics and Media Culture in 18th Century Italy. Il fait partie d’une recherche au plus long cours que l’auteur a consacré à la sainteté et à la célébrité dans l’Italie de la fin de l’époque moderne. Le livre peut être téléchargé en pdf sur le site de la maison d’éditions. Le résumé et la table des matières peuvent être lus ci-dessous.

Resumen/Résumé

In 18^th-century Italy a number of priests, preachers, beggars, lay sisters and cloistered nuns crafted provocative and charismatic personae to become revered as saints and champions of the faith. To do so, they and their followers and “fans” made use of compelling narratives, pageantry, rich imagery, and sensational accounts staging their deeds and miracles, creating a media output that often reverberated across social divides. Cults of worship sprang up around these candidate saints, who became unwitting guardians of the status quo in an imaginary “land of devotion” that exploited their narratives to sustain conservative values in the face of strident calls for Enlightenment reform. While ideals of political and cultural innovation dominate the scholarly literature on 18^th-century Italy, this book challenges those views and introduces an important counternarrative, charting new frontiers for Enlightenment research. 

Índice/ Table des matières

• Introduction
  • 1. The role of saints: between institutional control and communicative needs
  • 2. Devotional practices and local/national identities
• 1. Living Like a Saint
  • 1. Displays of devotion in the court of Charles of Bourbon and Maria Amalia of Saxony
  • 2. The queen’s vision (Kingdom of Naples, 1734-1752)
  • 3. Royalty, fear and devotion
  • 4. The fabrication of saintliness in the context of Church and State
  • 5. Processions that “please God”
  • 6. Heretics, healers and false saints under the gaze of the grand duke
  • 7. The false saint and obedience to the king
• 2. Dying Like a Saint
  • 1. The body of miracles
  • 2. The father of the candidate saint
  • 3. Miracles, authority and faith
  • 4. Ties, kinship and loyalty to the Medicean dynasty
  • 5. Defying the marks of time, once again
• 3. Writing About, Painting, and Talking About Saints
  • 1. The lives of female saints and the glorious past of the Medici
  • 2. The Knights of Saint Stephen, Mediterranean corsairs and new saints
  • 3. Promoting a cult: establishing a particular notion of the state
  • 4. The war of images
• 4. Saints of the Counterrevolution
  • 1. Conspiracy and defence of the faith
  • 2. The moral justification of devotions to saints
  • 3. Maria Francesca, Alfonso and the counterrevolution
  • 4. The “servants of God who acted in the interest of the spiritual and earthly good of the city of Naples”
• Conclusion