The statutes of Santa Maria dei Battuti of Treviso were typical of seemingly countless brotherhoods in Renaissance Italy, where the devout gathered in voluntary association and dedicated their prayers and works to the honor of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Scholars have increasingly studied confraternal associations, at the intersection of personal devotion and public service, as a key element of Italian Renaissance society. Their organization, activities, wealth, and involvement in the community offer various ways to investigate the nature of Renaissance political and religious life. Confraternities and their hospitals offer a view of broad Christian values refracted through the experience of each local community. Despite their common organizational principles and ubiquity in Renaissance society, confraternities remained intensely local. The important geographic location of Treviso and the unique historical development of Santa Maria dei Battuti place this confraternity at the confluence of three major historiographical currents: Renaissance religion, public charity and relief, and the territorial state. How a powerful provincial confraternity responded to the spiritual and material needs of the local community and mediated the regional objectives of the capital city will provide valuable insights into the role of religion in Renaissance states.

Italian Renaissance studies have long labored under the influence of nineteenth-century constructs that depicted the Renaissance as the birth of the modern secular age. In the last few decades myriad studies of Renaissance religion have challenged this basic assumption.