Death, Disease and Mystical Experience in Early Modern Art

Michael Hill is Head of Art History and Theory at the National Art School in Sydney. His research focuses on the art and architecture of the Italian Baroque, Australian sculpture, and art historiography. Michael has also written with Peter Kohane a number of articles of the idea of decorum in architectural theory. Jennifer Milam is Professor of Art History and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Her research focuses on art, architecture, and garden design during the eighteenth century. Her publications include A Cultural History of Plants in the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomsbury, 2022), Making Ideas Visible in the Eighteenth Century (University of Delaware Press, 2022), Beyond Chinoiserie: Artistic Exchanges Between China and the West during the Late Qing Dynasty (Brill, 2018), Historical Dictionary of Rococo Art (Scarecrow Press, 2011), Fragonard’s Playful Paintings. Visual Games in Rococo Art (University of Manchester Press, 2007), and Women, Art and The Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Ashgate Press, 2003).

• Introduction: Manipulating the Sacred - Jennifer Milam and Michael Hill 1. Mary as Model for Trecento Mourning - Judith Steinhoff, University of Houston 2. “Pacem meam do vobis”: Earthly Suffering and Celestial Redemption in the Trecento Fresco Program by Vitale da Bologna at Pomposa Abbey - Catherine Blake, independent scholar 3. Dying to be Born Again: Death in the Florentine “Sacre Rappresentazioni” - Nerida Newbigin, University of Sydney 4. The Visual Transformations of St Anthony the Abbot: From Protector of the Sick to Victor over Sexual Desire - Charles Zika, University of Melbourne 5. Giovanni Cariani’s “Woman Reclining in a Landscape”: The Erotic Subverted - Carolyn Smyth, John Cabot University, Rome 6. Touching Visions: Female Mystics Interacting with the Christ Child and with Mary - Patricia Simons, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 7. Queering Mysticism and the Lactating Virgin: The “Madonna delle Grazie with Souls in Purgatory” and its Audience of Nuns - Christina Neilson, Oberlin College 8. Securing Heavenly Protection in Apocalyptic Times: A Series of Fresco Votives in the Oratory of San Giovanni Battista in Urbino. - Di Haskell, independent scholar 9. The Long Goodbye: Resurrecting Rome’s Apostolic Past in “The Final Embrace of Saints Peter and Paul” - Barbara Wisch, State University of New York, College at Cortland 10. The Beautiful Death of the Count of Orgaz: Andrés Núñez, El Greco, and the Making of a Counter Reformation Saint - Karen McCluskey, University of Notre Dame, Sydney 11. A Vessel to be Filled: Caravaggio’s “Conversion of St. Paul” in Santa Maria del Popolo - Michael Hill, National Art School, Sydney 12. Lo Strascino’s “Lamento” and the Visual Culture of the French Pox around 1500 - John Gagne, University of Sydney 13. Whiz King: Urination as Divination in Prints for Louis XIV - Mark de Vitis, University of Sydney 14. David’s “Saint Roch”: Plague Painting in the Age of Enlightenment - Jennifer Milam, University of Newcastle 15. Blake’s Petworth House “Last Judgment” and Female Anatomy - Anthony Apesos, Lesley University 16. Cocteau’s London Elegy: Re-purposed Renaissance Imagery in a Twentieth-Century Crucifixion - Stephen Holford, independent scholar Index