Madonnas & miracles

de Maya Corry, Deborah Howard, Mary Laven

Madonnas and Miracles exposes a hidden world of religious devotion in the Italian Renaissance home. Challenging the idea of the Renaissance as an age of increasing worldliness, it shows how religion remained a powerful force that colored every aspect of daily life. Across the length and breadth of Italy, houses were filled with decorative objects and works of art with spiritual significance, designed to aid members of the family in their devotional lives. A wide range of religious activities, from routine prayers to extraordinary experiences such as miracles and exorcisms, took place within the home, where they were adapted to key moments in the life-cycle, including birth, marriage, sickness and death. This illustrated publication explores a variety of devotional objects and images, from luxury items to everyday household goods. Bringing together jewellery and ceramics, manuscripts and printed books, sculpture and paintings, the book offers a vivid encounter with Renaissance spirituality and domesticity. The result is a new vision of a period in which the material world was charged with sacred power. Exhibition: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK (Spring 2017).