5. Religious Life and Visual Authority:  Library Decoration among Mendicant Observant Orders

Roberto Cobianchi

doi:10.54195/XFRB6134

5. Religious Life and Visual Authority: Library Decoration among Mendicant Observant Orders

Authors

Roberto Cobianchi

Università degli Studi di Messina

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/XFRB6134_CH05

Synopsis

This chapter investigates the library decoration in Italian Dominican, Franciscan and Augustinian reformed male communities, and shows that, by and large, the decorative schemes used are significantly different from earlier ones, often being more lavish in nature (which in itself is surprising against the background of Observant ideas about simplicity and poverty), with an emphasis on the depiction of friars who exemplified the scholastic achievements of their order. The latter, in turn, seems to be related to a renewed interest, within Observant circles, in order history for the purpose of religious identity formation.

Author Biography

Roberto Cobianchi, Università degli Studi di Messina

Roberto Cobianchi is Associate Professor at the Università degli Studi di Messina, Italy. He specialises in religious art and iconography in late medieval and early modern Italy. His publications include the monograph Lo temperato uso dele cose. La committenza dell’Osservanza francescana nell’Italia del Rinascimento (2013), and articles such as “Cithara Angelica’: experiencing God through music in Franciscan imagery (...)’ (2020), ‘Il lungo corso del «Fiume del terrestre Paradiso». Francescanesimo, immagini e iconografie nell’età della Controriforma’ (2017), ‘Printing a New Saint: Woodcut Production and Canonization of Saints in Late Medieval Italy’ (2015).