Long processions of bleeding flagellants wielding banners and whips, or of sleek be-robed worthies shepherding the orphans they sheltered, the adolescent girls they dowered, or the children they educated. Bread handed out on a corner, public feasts hosted on a holy day, private banquets fueled by legacies. Nocturnal gatherings whose purpose could be devotional (as members claimed) or sexual, or political (as critics suspected). Cadres of marching children whose devotion could either inspire or make uneasy. Groups of women who managed shelters, clothed the Virgin Mary on feast days, and organized parochial devotions.

Early modern Italians encountered confraternities in every town and neighborhood, on every holiday, at every rite of passage. But just what did they experience, whether from inside or out? The rituals noted above generated a host of contradictory impressions. Brotherhoods were the most public face of the church, yet were almost entirely lay. They originated to promote civic peace, yet were factious and partisan. Their internal ordering was to reflect the equality of souls in the eyes of God, yet everything from seats in the oratory to place in procession was ranked hierarchically. Distinct groups expressed the finely graded calibrations by which a boundary-and role-conscious society kept genders, ages, classes, and races distinct, though always with boundary-crossing exceptions to prove the rule.