The Distinctive Features of Religious Festivities in the Spanish Netherlands: The Douai Celebrations for the Canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier
-
and
Abstract
This paper is devoted to the spectacular ceremonies organised in the Low Countries to celebrate the canonisations of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. It focuses in particular on how local festive culture, characterised by a long tradition of spectacular Joyous Entries, has shaped these events. Compared to these previous models, what kind of new and specific language was created to express the transcendence of an absentee, the saint, and through him the Divine? Did a more obvious relationship exist between wonder and the sacred? We seek to answer these questions through the study of a particular case: the festivities organised by the university town of Douai. We explore the ways in which texts and images propose, through rather sophisticated displays, a re-creation of what happened rather than a representation.
Acknowledgments
This paper is part of a project (2012–2017) that has been funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office and co-directed by Ralph Dekoninck, Annick Delfosse, Maarten Delbeke, and Koen Vermeir. The project related to the cultures of the Baroque spectacle in Italy and the Southern Netherlands. See http://web.philo.ulg.ac.be/csb/ (accessed 18 October 2022); Ralph Dekoninck, Maarten Delbeke, Annick Delfosse, Caroline Heering, and Koen Vermeir, eds., Cultures du spectacle baroque: cadres, expériences et représentations des solennités religieuses entre Italie et anciens Pays-Bas, Artes 10 (Brussels: Institut Historique Belge de Rome – Belgisch Historisch Instituut te Rome and Turnhout: Brepols, 2019); Ralph Dekoninck, Maarten Delbeke, Annick Delfosse, and Koen Vermeir, “Mise en image du spectacle et spectacularisation de l’image à l’âge baroque,” Degrés: revue de synthèse à orientation sémiologique 151–52 (2013), 1–14; Ralph Dekoninck, Maarten Delbeke, Annick Delfosse, and Koen Vermeir, “Performing Emotions at the Canonization of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier in the Southern Low Countries,” in Changing Heart: Performing Jesuit Emotions between Europe, Asia and the Americas, ed. Raphaële Garrod and Yasmin Haskell, Jesuit Studies 15 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2017), 187–210; Ralph Dekoninck, Maarten Delbeke, Annick Delfosse, Caroline Heering, and Koen Vermeir, “La spectacularité baroque dans les anciens Pays-Bas: Moyens et fins,” in Alla luce di Roma: I disegni scenografici di scultori fiamminghi e il barocco romano, exhibition catalogue, Istituto centrale per la grafica, 08/12/2016–26/02/2017, ed. Charles Bossu, Wouter Bracke, Alain Jacobs, Sara Lambeau, and Chiara Leporati (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2017), 138–49.
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- The Birth of Modern Sanctity: The 1622 Canonizations
- Introduction
- A Holy Flood of Saints: The 1622 Canonizations
- Research Articles
- The Quintuple Canonization of 1622: Between the Renewal of the Making of Saints and Claims for Pontifical Monopoly
- War Saints: The Canonization of 1622
- Framing Sainthood in 1622: Teresa of Ávila, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier
- The Distinctive Features of Religious Festivities in the Spanish Netherlands: The Douai Celebrations for the Canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier
- Conversion and Sanctity in Print: The Episode of Ignatius of Loyola and Isaac, the Roman Jew ca. 1600
- Glorifying Francis Xavier’s (1506–1552) Good Deeds or Miracles? The Negotiation of Sanctity in Daniello Bartoli’s Asia (1653)
- Dying in the Odor of Sanctity: Philip Neri and the Performance of Saintly Death in Catholic Reformation Rome
- 1622, the Fatal Year for the Discalced Carmelites: The Canonisation of Teresa, the Crystallisation of Conventual Typologies, and the Reinvention of Iconography
- On the Canonization of the Founders of Religious Orders in Early Modern Times
- Retraction
- A Personal Union: Reformed Christology and the Question of the Communicatio Idiomatum
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- The Birth of Modern Sanctity: The 1622 Canonizations
- Introduction
- A Holy Flood of Saints: The 1622 Canonizations
- Research Articles
- The Quintuple Canonization of 1622: Between the Renewal of the Making of Saints and Claims for Pontifical Monopoly
- War Saints: The Canonization of 1622
- Framing Sainthood in 1622: Teresa of Ávila, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier
- The Distinctive Features of Religious Festivities in the Spanish Netherlands: The Douai Celebrations for the Canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier
- Conversion and Sanctity in Print: The Episode of Ignatius of Loyola and Isaac, the Roman Jew ca. 1600
- Glorifying Francis Xavier’s (1506–1552) Good Deeds or Miracles? The Negotiation of Sanctity in Daniello Bartoli’s Asia (1653)
- Dying in the Odor of Sanctity: Philip Neri and the Performance of Saintly Death in Catholic Reformation Rome
- 1622, the Fatal Year for the Discalced Carmelites: The Canonisation of Teresa, the Crystallisation of Conventual Typologies, and the Reinvention of Iconography
- On the Canonization of the Founders of Religious Orders in Early Modern Times
- Retraction
- A Personal Union: Reformed Christology and the Question of the Communicatio Idiomatum
