Renaissance and Baroque – serie

Imago Triumphalis: The Function and Significance of Triumphal Imagery for Renaissance Rulers examines how independent rulers in fifteenth-century Italy used the motif of the Roman triumph for self-aggrandizement and personal expression. Triumphal imagery, replete with connotations of victory and splendor, was recognized during the Renaissance as a reflection of the glory of classical antiquity. Its appeal as a powerful visual bearer of meaning is evidenced by its appearance as a dominant theme in literature, architecture, and art. Rulers such as Alfonso of Aragon, Federico da Montefeltro, Sigismondo Malatesta, and Borso d’Este chose to incorporate the triumphal motif in major artistic commissions in which they were represented. They recognized that the image of the triumph could retain its classical associations while functioning as a highly personalized commentary.

Natural Law, Constitutionalism, Reason of State, and War: Counter-Reformation Spanish Political Thought (Volumes I and II) aims at understanding how Spanish thinkers in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries approached the emerging institution of the state. Both volumes are divided evenly into four distinct but related parts that cover the Spaniards’ central concerns. In the first part, a fundamental question is asked: Is the state a natural institution? In the second, the theme is determining the best form of government. The third part is concerned with the imperative need to define the ethical boundaries beyond which the state must not trespass. Finally, the fourth part examines the question of war as an instrument of policy.

The Path of Humility: Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo establishes a fundamental relationship between the Franciscan humility of Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo and the Roman sacred works of Caravaggio. This is the first book to consider and focus entirely upon these two seemingly anomalous personalities of the Counter-Reformation. The import of Caravaggio’s Lombard artistic heritage has long been seen as pivotal to the development of his sacred style, but it was not his only source of inspiration. This book seeks to enlarge the discourse surrounding Caravaggio’s style by placing him firmly in the environment of Borromean Milan, a city whose urban fabric was transformed into a metaphorical Via Crucis. This book departs from the prevailing preoccupation – the artist’s experience in Rome as fundamental to his formulation of sacred style – and toward his formative years in Borromeo’s Milan, where humility reigned supreme. This book is intended for a broad, yet specialized readership interested in Counter-Reformation art and devotion. It serves as a critical text for undergraduate and graduate art history courses on Baroque art, Caravaggio, and Counter-Reformation art.

The highly condensed and often coded philosophical messages of some of Silesius' epigrams are translated into English and reinterpreted in a way that they reveal their universality and relevance to modern times. The «Word» is a recurring topic in the Cherubinischer Wandersmann. The «Word» (Logos) is closely related to the idea of creation. In Angelus Silesius, creation, both divine and human, is a central issue. The topic of creation is of keen interest to the contemporary reader as well, for it ties in with current theories of mind-matter connections of both post-Einsteinian physicists and contemporary psychoanalysis. Thus the Silesian «Angel» of seventeenth-century Germany has much to say to the modern reader in all places.