Relics, dreams, voyages: world baroque

Abstract

"Relics, dreams, voyages is a closely focused sequence of studies of worldwide connections in all the arts in the baroque period. Drawing on original research in libraries, collections, and archives in five countries, and in as many languages, this book draws many astonishing, unfamiliar and beautiful texts, things and events, into a cartography of the secret and strange patterns of baroque cultures worldwide. The visual arts are examined across a wide temporal and geographical span, and many subversive iconographies are decoded: at the French and English courts, in remote Scotland, in Nagasaki, in Valladolid. This books offers a new, extraordinary cultural geography of the baroque world, opening doors to many rich and strange cultural artefacts, from 'China to Peru'"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Prologue : the gestures of the skeletons : reticulations of the baroque world -- Part I. Centres and peripheries -- 1. James Fraser : experiencing the arts of Italy in the mid-seventeenth century -- 2. The Jesuits and the languages of Britain : the case of Robert Corbie SJ -- 3. Gentileschi and the ancestors -- 4. Pope's recusancy -- 5. Mr Gibbon's shadow, or 'the parent of the arts' -- Part II. Materialities -- 6. The solemnity of the Madonna Vulnerata, Valladolid, 1600 -- 7. Opposing Elizabeth -- 8. Relics and memorials of Mary Stuart in the Low Countries -- 9. Viper wine -- 10. The assassin's new castles : frescoes and textiles for the Leslies at Nové Město nad Metují and Ptui -- 11. A Jesuit reliquary crucifix from Japan -- 12. The Jesuit garden -- Part III. Designs of the imagination -- 13. The dream of Raphael -- 14. Alexander Seton, his house, his library, his world -- 15. Paper gardens -- 16. Imaginary baroque cities : the Chearnley circle and the Earl of Mar -- 17. Artificial islands : i.m. Peter Scupham.