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Material Piety: Science and Religious Culture in Seventeenth-Century Portugal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 December 2021
Abstract
In seventeenth-century Lisbon, Jesuit mathematicians taught their students how to build blood-ejecting crucifixes and similar religious devices. Together with the activities of experts in the canonization of Isabel of Portugal and in other contexts, these situations represent rare instances in which religious devotion interacted directly with science. Informed by the histories of science, art, and religion, this essay argues that a piety centered on materiality fostered these scientific practices, which became religious ministries in themselves. This analysis brings new light to lasting debates on science and religion and to the purpose of practicing science in the early modern period.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by the Renaissance Society of America
Footnotes
This article benefited much from the advice of many scholars and friends. I am especially thankful to Stephen Campbell, Leonor Castel-Branco, Henrique Leitão, Gianna Pomata, María Portuondo, Lawrence Principe, Erin Rowe (and those at the 2018/19 Iberian seminar at Johns Hopkins University), and Jessica Wolfe, who all read previous versions of this article, sometimes more than once. Research in Portugal and Rome was supported by the Charles Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe.
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