Representing Infirmity: Diseased Bodies in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy
International Conference
December 13-15, 2017
Monash University Prato Centre
This conference represents the first analysis of how diseased bodies were represented in Italy during the ‘long Renaissance’, from the early 1400s through ca. 1650. Many individual studies by historians of art and medicine address specific aspects of this subject, yet there has never been an attempt to define or explore the broader topic. Moreover, most studies interpret Renaissance images and text through the lens of current notions about disease. This conference avoids the pitfalls of retrospective diagnosis, and looks beyond the modern category of ‘disease’ by viewing ‘infirmity’ in Galenic humoural terms. Papers explore what infirmities were depicted in visual culture, in what context, why, and when. Specific examples consider the idealized body altered by disease, and the relationship between the depiction of infirmities through miracle cures and through medical treatment. Speakers also examine how and why these representations change across media and over time. Thus, certain types of diseased bodies appear often in votive images, but never in altarpieces or sculptures; representations of wounds and sores grow increasingly less graphic and frequent, but with notable exceptions. Finally, it explores how the development of greater knowledge of the workings and structure of the body in this period, through, for example, the growth of anatomy, was reflected in changing ideas and representations of the metaphorical, allegorical, and symbolic meanings of infirmity and disease. The conference addresses the construction of the notion of disease, and aims to present a new paradigm for the field.
Read more about the Monash University Prato Centre here, including information on how to get to there.
The event is open to all and free of charge, no reservation required. For additional information, please contact: infirmity2017@gmail.com.
December 13
6:00 KEYNOTE
Bill Kent Lecture: John Henderson (Birkbeck, University of London and Monash University), “Religion, Medicine and Art in the Time of Plague: Florence, 1630-33”
Reception
December 14
09:45 MORNING SESSION
Registration
Cecilia Hewlett (Director, Monash University Prato Centre), Welcome
John Henderson, Introduction
Sheila Barker (Medici Archive Project, Florence), “Artistic Devices for Representing Internal Symptoms and Infirmities without Outward Symptoms”
Evelyn Welch (King’s College, London), “Breaking Skin in Renaissance Italy”
Discussion
Coffee Break
Jonathan K. Nelson (Syracuse University Florence), “Cancer in Michelangelo’s Night: Temperaments in the New Sacristy”
Danielle Carrabino (Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts), “Early Modern Views of Goiters: Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Saint Andrew”
Discussion
Buffet Lunch
2:45 AFTERNOON SESSION
Paolo Savoia (King’s College, London), “Suffering Through It: Representations of Bodies in Surgery in Italian Books, ca 1550-1650”
Diana Bullen Presciutti (University of Essex and Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies), “The Friar as medico: Picturing Leprosy, Institutional Care, and Franciscan Virtues in La Franceschina”
Discussion
Tea Break
Fredrika Jacobs (Virginia Commonwealth University), “Infirmity in votive culture: A Case Study from the Sanctuary of the Madonna dell’ Arco, Naples”
Jenni Kuuliala (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tampere), “Disability, Illness, and the Miraculous in the late sixteenth century: The San Carlo cycle of paintings in the Duomo of Milan.”
Peter Howard (Monash University, Melbourne and Prato), “Infirmity as ‘exemplum’ and Rhetorical Ploy in Renaissance Preaching”
Discussion
December 15
09:45 DISCUSSION SESSION
Registration
Michael Stolberg (Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, University of Würzburg), Discussant
General Discussion
Coffee Break
GRADUATE STUDENT POSTER SESSION
Margaret Bell (Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara) “The Spatiality of Infirmity in Renaissance Italian Painting”
Jennifer Gear (Department of the History of Art, The University of Michigan), “Exploring Plague and its Imaging in Seicento Venice”
Sara Berkowitz (Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland at College Park), “Beyond the Bearded Lady: Figuring Medical and Gender Ambiguity in Jusepe de Ribera’s Portrait of Magdalena Ventura and her Husband (1631)”
Sarah McBryde (Department of History of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London), “ ‘A gifted dwarf’ in the court of Cosimo I de’Medici”
Discussion
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