This project aims at bridging the gap between devotional books of the late Middle Ages and devotional books of the Early Modern period. Illuminated manuscript Books of Hours, and the later printed specimens of the genre, have seldom been analyzed in their role of precursors of religious Emblem Books that flooded Europe starting from the late sixteenth century. Italy and the Low Countries (Flanders and, later on, the Netherlands) are at that time both leading the way for European book culture in general. This makes of these two areas a privileged field of inquiry on this subject. Italian Books of Hours on the other hand have only recently been taken into account as a specific type of production, and thus far only in relation to the 14th and 15th centuries, while 16th and 17th century manuscripts still require further inquiries.
Although quite different in format and arrangement of materials, Books of Hours and religious Emblem Books share a meaningful combination of image and text, as well as their function as tools for domestic devotion, destined to a largely female public. The research will focus on such topics as:
- the recurring presence of iconographic motifs
- the model role of Netherlandish/Italian specimens
- the effects of the shift from manuscript to print production
- the influence of Reformation and Counter-Reformation issues on both genres.
The comparison between Italy and the Low countries appears to open a particularly fruitful path of research given the rich variety of devotional instruments devised in the Northern context and the systematic interrelation between the two areas between the 15th and 16th century. Traces of the mobility of men and books between the two areas remain in multiple objects, such as Flemish calendars in Italian Books of Hours or Italian manuscripts completed in the Netherlands (Manzari 2013). Emblem books circulated widely throughout Europe, with Italy being the cradle of this genre. Although the Italian roots have been considered in the dissemination of emblems in Europe, the connection between the tradition of devotional imagery in Books of Hours and the re-elaboration of Christian emblemata has scarcely been posited and this will be one of the main aims of this project. A new outlook should therefore be among the most interesting outputs of this project. Although the comparison between visual culture in Italy and the Netherlands has been widely investigated in relation to painting, tapestries and decorative arts, the focus on devotional books and emblem books in a comprehensive view has been neglected until now. The comparison between a Protestant output of devotional images and the ongoing Catholic tradition is another field in which the project intends to produce innovative results