Recording Miracles in Renaissance Italy

Abstract

If you take the train from Naples around the northern rim of Mount Vesuvius, you will arrive at Madonna dell’Arco, on the edge of the town of Sant’Anastasia. The station takes its name from the large and rather grandiose whitewashed sanctuary that dominates the neighbourhood. With its generic belfry and copper-green cupola, the church building, begun in 1593 and much extended in the twentieth century, is nothing to write home about architecturally. But its bulky presence is a good starting point for thinking about the concrete means by which communities seek to record miraculous events. According to tradition, on Easter Monday 1450 a local lad was playing the ball game pall-mall with his friends when — in a fit of irritation — he threw the ball at a painting of the Madonna that had been placed within an arch (hence ‘Madonna dell’Arco’). This act of sacrilege ignited a trio of miracles: firstly, the Virgin’s face bled and secondly, the boy found himself rooted to the ground and unable to flee. The third miracle related to the punishment of the boy. When news reached the Count of Sarno, who held judicial authority over the region, he reacted quickly by condemning the accused to be hanged from the lime tree next to the Madonna. Two hours later, following the death of the intemperate youth, the tree dramatically withered — an event that was perceived as lending sacred force to the secular justice of the hanging. These were the first of thousands of miracles that subsequently occurred thanks to the intervention of the Madonna dell’Arco and which, to this day, are documented in a variety of media at the church and adjacent study centre.1 In common with numerous other shrines across the Catholic world, the primary record of the image’s miraculous tradition may be said to be the sanctuary church itself.2 But the cluster of buildings at the site, designed to welcome pilgrims and other devotees, also serve as archives of visual and material records that attest to the miracles brought about by the image of the Virgin Mary. Upon entering the church, the most conspicuous of these are the painted wooden tablets that line the walls of the church like scales. Hundreds of these boards, oriented in landscape and normally measuring twenty to thirty centimetres across, depict graces brought about by the Madonna. Some are roughly grouped according to theme, for example shipwrecks, overturned carriages, domestic scenes of families gathered around the sickbed and (a more recent genre) hospital emergencies. There is scant regard for chronology, although in a minority of cases the images are dated and the beneficiary of the miracle is named. More often, the picture is left to speak for itself. In the corridors behind the High Altar, more wall-space is devoted to other kinds of material record. Mass-produced anatomical models made of metal represent the feet, the hands, the hearts, the breasts et cetera of those who have been healed at the shrine. These images are interspersed with small-scale reliefs of whole people, men, women, children and babies, also serially produced and without personal features. Yet another section of wall displays a collage of crutches and leg-irons. Meanwhile, in the museum that forms part of the sanctuary’s study centre, prominence is given to rare, valuable and curious records of miracles — gifts of gratitude to the Madonna for her graces. These include precious jewels, porcelain, Olympic medals, thick plaits of hair, golden syringes that document habits kicked, and knives and guns that commemorate the moral conversion of former participants in organized crime (this is Naples, after all). These myriad objects and images are all known as ‘ex-votos’, a Latin expression meaning ‘from a vow’. The logic of that phrase refers to the contract made between devotee and saint (or deity) at a time of crisis. The supplicant beseeches the saint — in this case the Madonna dell’Arco — to help them in their hour of need and promises (‘vows’) to make a gift to the saint if their request is granted. The offering may take many forms, for example a donation of cash or grain or a pilgrimage or other special devotion. However, the appeal of votive objects that visually represent the healed body has proved enduring over many centuries and is by no means restricted to the Christian tradition.3 In the ancient world, it was common to leave anatomical models at healing sanctuaries and other religious sites as offerings to the gods.4 From the medieval period to the present day, the production of wax models representing parts of the body has proved especially popular.5 While a clear line of succession may be drawn between the bronze and earthenware body-parts left at pre-Christian shrines and the votive models that adorn Catholic sanctuaries today, the prized collection of painted tablets at Madonna dell’Arco arises from a more culturally specific development. For these simple yet descriptive images, executed on wooden boards, first came into common use in Italy during the 1490s. While their sudden appearance in shrines across the Italian peninsula still requires explanation, several plausible contexts have been suggested. Firstly, they may be considered as a visual offshoot from the predella panels that became popular from the fourteenth century: small-scale images, situated around or at the base of an altarpiece, in which scenes from the life of Christ or of the saints were illustrated.6 Secondly, their emergence may be linked to the popularization of portraiture and the representation of donors in religious art. A third context for this new visual genre is the rise of print. During the period 1475–1600, the publication of hundreds of miracle-books propagated a repertoire of narratives on which painted ex-votos might feed. Fourthly and more generally, as Fredrika Jacobs has remarked, we can see the popularity of votive tablets as arising from ‘the laicisation of religion’ and in particular the growth of Marian piety, which were conspicuous trends in fifteenth-century Italy.7 The Madonna dell’Arco houses the largest though not the oldest collection of painted ex-votos in Italy. Here, over seven thousand tablets are preserved, most of them stored in the study centre. Although the numbers are boosted by a very substantial presence of modern votive tablets, the survival rate from the early modern period remains impressive. Nearly eight hundred are thought to have been produced before 1600, the great majority of which date from the 1590s. Other shrines in Central and Northern Italy preserve votive tablets from the first period of their production, the most significant early collections surviving in Viterbo (Lazio), Tolentino (Marche), Cesena (Emilia-Romagna) and Lonigo (Veneto). Votive tablets are notoriously hard to date, owing to long-term degradation, successive efforts at restoration, iconographic and stylistic continuity and very patchy documentation. However, realistic estimates place the number of extant painted ex-votos from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at more than fifteen hundred.8 Given the poor conditions in which the tablets have often been maintained and the poor quality of the materials with which they were first made, and taking into account descriptive evidence from the period, it is clear that what survives is but a small proportion of what once existed. In this essay, I investigate the ways in which votive offerings functioned as historical records.9 Whereas Virginia Reinburg has referred to French Books of Hours as creating ‘archives of prayer’, I suggest that ex-votos constituted ‘archives of miracles’; in both cases, we see the urge of early modern communities to preserve and document the intangible with intensely material records.10 In the context of ex-votos, the term ‘archives’ has a double resonance in relation both to shrines as repositories and to the collections of material records that they housed. Moreover, these archives of miracles are not finite but continue to accumulate records to the present day. My focus is on how individuals, institutions and communities created, maintained and drew upon these archives of votive evidence during the Renaissance. The parallels that exist between archives of documents and archives of things prompt questions about the status of visual and material evidence in the early modern period and about its relationship with text. Indeed, the coincidence of the rise of votive tablets in the final decade of the fifteenth century with the rise of print draws attention to the interplay between visual and verbal strategies for recording and publicizing miracles in the Italian Renaissance. The printed miracle compilations that abounded during this period drew authority from various kinds of written evidence, including notarized records and legal documents. Crucially, they also depended for their stories on the painted ex-votos accumulated on the church walls. The current discussion begins with three shrines from the south, centre and north of Italy where curators and art historians have established with some confidence the number of votive tablets pre-dating 1600. These are Madonna dell’Arco (c.784 tablets); Tolentino (c.134) and Lonigo (c.150).11 While the shrines of Madonna dell’Arco and Lonigo are both dedicated to miraculous images of the Virgin Mary, Tolentino honours a male saint, St Nicholas, an Augustinian friar who died in 1305 and was canonized in 1446. For early modern historians, the ex-votos preserved at these shrines might be taken to represent an extraordinary archive, largely neglected thanks to our professional tendency to privilege word over image. They are an enticing source because they appear to offer visual depictions of ordinary occurrences involving ordinary people. They speak to us, for example, of the horror and poignancy of infant illness and injury, of the fears generated by factional violence and wrongful accusation, of the predictable yet traumatic life-cycle events of birth, sickness, and death and of life’s less predictable calamities, including natural disasters and every kind of accident. Boy wounded by scissors, late fifteenth century. Tempera on panel. By kind permission of the Sanctuary of Madonna dei Miracoli, Lonigo. Woman in childbirth, late sixteenth century. Tempera on panel. By kind permission of the Sanctuary of Madonna dell’ Arco. into a sixteenth century. Tempera on panel. By kind permission of the of If the that images represent ‘the is by the the by the in the Lonigo the and in the example have at it is to that the of these images are not restricted to of and that their is not on and Moreover, the into some of the most of life — and for But is a of taken in by the of the images and that these offer to the between the miraculous and the we for in this archive, we need to investigate the of the the who made and ex-votos in the how were images by those who and preserved them for In what I attention to the and of these archives of miraculous events. we a number of from the about the production of painted votive tablets in the they produced by established and their they to more substantial for and were dedicated to the production of these of to these questions in part the of art historical The that is to has not as yet been on The in the or the with the ex-votos particular of In the first the tablets were not by their were they in account archives and between the and of painted ex-votos are that we very about the relationship between images that were and those that were the The of Italian established by the art to the of votive tablets, objects which not their and meaning to the name but which were with personal and More has to the production of wax the of the in the known as or was for votive to of the of the When the Madonna of the at Viterbo to in the who the first the to wax But once the of the of had taken of the at the of the sixteenth century, they of the to from to the they in In the case of we that the who had of the over the of and other wax also large of wax for use in votive in the an early the of an in which wax ex-votos anatomical models and and of various are the of painted tablets the of their production, thanks to the presence of These may be into Some an and some to and specific the visual the first various local may be tablets often the Latin the Italian phrase to also Madonna dell’Arco the most common is which for made a and a although in some this is in its first This of can be in the example of the the are written in a in the of a from the lime tree — the particular of the Madonna The use of was less popular at Lonigo and to have taken from the century. By more personal that name the beneficiary of the miracle and are common From our of votive tablets from more than that offer some specific — at the very a date or the of the beneficiary and a more of the miracle that has been Although a proportion of ex-votos at Tolentino and Madonna dell’Arco and although has the in many we are left with a good body of evidence from across the three the of this evidence we can to how painted votive tablets as I A the north of I A given by Tempera on panel. By kind permission of the of A from in which the image and were made on that was the wooden on the of the to is clear and to every how I from made a at Lonigo on of who were at this time from their by the of the of the was and this I with occurred in the time as they the also the graces by The of the beneficiary of the miracle is the recording of and of This with anatomical is to wax from as will be is some evidence to suggest that ex-votos have and other of in this The to specific specific miracles is of the of the painted votive in cases where no was — as with the by or the first into a — the of the have and communities to the who were the other serially produced painted tablets representing men, and children in their often a in which the or beneficiary of a miracle his or her personal are of generic depictions of the which no or date, but in these cases the as the of the on the or the of a or to the image. The presence of in a minority of cases to the of that is a more of votive These the ways in which painted ex-votos might serve to the the they might be into the of or to more recent narratives to and the of are the votive made of wax that became at in in the fifteenth century. In his study of the art these as and with good they were often of that preserved the particular of the and which were in the — a from the wax or other body parts from the local might see the emergence of votive tablets in the late fifteenth century as part of a to record the as as the although need to be by some of the of the to the of the The rather than the is often their of But of ex-votos not as a means by which and their families might commemorate the miracles with which they had been They also to record the of a particular saint or shrine. a of the of ex-votos that early modern we can to account of his in to the of This was the Italian the Virgin home it was been by in the late century. the centre of a large the small from in which the had taken the of the as with votive tablets that all the to the ground is not an of The sanctuary that the was this great church is with tablets, and The in of early modern sanctuaries were with a of to every how to and make an collection of The of like to make of their some into the of these archives of of was to record the of at a shrine. is that an of ex-votos drawn at Madonna dell’ in the the very period when painted tablets to at this not in and and other kinds of and gifts of are in some The is that painted ex-votos not significant which be or precious which be or painted ex-votos not have a The that of miracles in when they left votive tablets at shrines in a The of local was another to the of votive In in the to investigate the of of Tolentino twenty after his votive offerings left at the were documented as evidence of But when was not the and to the miraculous of a local Madonna or this the of print new From the generic compilations of Marian miracles the These were by more specific that the miracles generated by local By the of the sixteenth century, it to have common for the of these — of a religious with a for of the — to include an account of the with the of a about the life and miracles of the of an Augustinian who in the century, written by a of the and in a of wax votive a of left at the by a a of wax as by the of a boy or who was from an that of his wax given by the and of a from and with an made of left by who her If the ex-votos at the of were made of the evidence from the of is more the friar was a of both miracles and ex-votos in The of of the of a of for of the Virgin’s which had occurred the image of the had first its miraculous in the of miracle the votive offering left by the with our that painted tablets not the late fifteenth century, they are from of the the first appearance at miracle number dated this he and or made of with a of other including several that had been from the church during the of and of and as to the of the ex-votos — wax models were to be as or — and where they were the in the of the or to the of the The by of a material which is no extant the of ex-votos to speak as of in this genre is the of the Madonna of Lonigo written by the an from and in like was a who the presence not of and but also of he not is that records for both the painted ex-votos and the the to we see the urge to votive offerings votive tablets to their in an of the votive at the in was to as much evidence as — visual and — in of miraculous The recording of material ex-votos in written to their presence to the made by the of miracle the of their local expression by is — a phrase to the of legal documents which roughly as in a miracle in which a was in the by a made a votive offering to the miraculous image of the the was of which an with its the miraculous of a from the in was by the presence of a votive a with its this to the of the ex-votos in the of the Lonigo There is no place in this world, on the or in the where the of the Madonna of not of this are the many votive both those that were brought in former and those that continue to be by the miraculous image. These serve as many to and the great of the most the most evidence that to the of of — those have been have votive offerings of and wax and of of and which though they a and the the for the of and the While the of miracle made much of the upon which they are was no in which the material evidence of ex-votos was an In relation to as to that ‘the of media to have considered for the of miraculous of place to objects and Meanwhile, the who the evidence for the miraculous of ex-votos the they and wax images also the crutches of those who had been If material and visual ex-votos had a particular in the miraculous of Italian they were also a has been was especially to the of of the ex-votos at the which the with an of These are as or in need of an is as or and — in on account of a to the of the miracle — the is the left by a of the of by In another example, the that might be taken by the in case of an that was at once significant and also Two of the the of and had brought and a very large wax as had been to the to thanks to the Virgin for them from the In to that their offering serve a the made a of it in which was present at the time was in the of the I record how on the of the of a large part of the ex-votos in the church was that is the the of was all the and the ex-votos on the those to the to which were in large part all of them a as the hands, when a is and in it will be to it with the painted in the that how they are in and we that they are maintained in for they are the and the of this upon by dei century. and on By kind permission of the A from the the and no By kind permission of the This has the of Italian ex-votos, and the ways in which they were and in a variety of shrines across the in t

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