
The Matter of Miracles
Neapolitan Baroque Architecture and Sanctity
Helen Hills(Author)
Manchester University Press
Published on 13. October 2016
Book
Hardback
656 pages
978-0-7190-8474-4 (ISBN)
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Description
This book investigates baroque architecture through the lens of San Gennaro's miraculously liquefying blood in Naples. This vantage point allows a bracing and thoroughly original rethink of the power of baroque relics and reliquaries. It shows how a focus on miracles produces original interpretations of architecture, sanctity and place which will engage architectural historians everywhere. The matter of the baroque miracle extends into a rigorous engagement with natural history, telluric philosophy, new materialism, theory and philosophy. The study will transform our understanding of baroque art and architecture, sanctity and Naples. Bristling with new archival materials and historical insights, this study lifts the baroque from its previous marginalisation to engage fiercely with materiality and potentiality and thus unleash baroque art and architecture as productive and transformational. -- .
Reviews / Votes
'This book gathers together the results of important, original and ambitious research. [...] from the title on, HH challenges one to read between the lines and to go beyond the appearance of architecture and baroque sanctity. [...] Hills interprets 17C and 18C architecture as a 'machinic', a productive phenomenon and in terms of potential; not the reflection of the will of patron or architect, but a microcosm, an 'assemblage' that through its materiality and physical presence creates relations, worshippers, city, politics and spirituality.'Annali di architettura -- .
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
49 colour illustrations, 72 black & white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-7190-8474-4 (9780719084744)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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1st Edition
Manchester University Press
€189.99
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Person
Helen Hills is Professor of History of Art at the University of York -- .
Content
Introduction: Openings
Prologue: The analogous relic
1 The matter of miracles: San Gennaro's blood and the Treasury Chapel
2 Blood, bronze, Vesuvius: material transformations
3 Miraculous witness: exclusive affects
4 The Machinic Chapel and the production of protectors
5 From prayer to presence
6 Niche and Saints: folding the wall
7 Saints on the move and the choreography of sanctity
8 Holiness and history: relics and gender
9 Heads and bones: face to face
10 Silver saints: between transformation and transaction
Conclusion: The miraculous chance
Index -- .
Prologue: The analogous relic
1 The matter of miracles: San Gennaro's blood and the Treasury Chapel
2 Blood, bronze, Vesuvius: material transformations
3 Miraculous witness: exclusive affects
4 The Machinic Chapel and the production of protectors
5 From prayer to presence
6 Niche and Saints: folding the wall
7 Saints on the move and the choreography of sanctity
8 Holiness and history: relics and gender
9 Heads and bones: face to face
10 Silver saints: between transformation and transaction
Conclusion: The miraculous chance
Index -- .