This collection embraces the increasing interest in the material world of the Renaissance and the early modern period, which has both fascinated contemporaries and initiated in recent years a distinguished historiography. The scholarship within is distinctive for engaging with the agentive qualities of matter, showing how affective dimensions in history connect with material history, and exploring the religious and cultural identity dimensions of the use of materials and artefacts. It thus aims to refocus our understanding of the meaning of the material world in this period by centring on the vibrancy of matter itself.

To achieve this goal, the authors approach "the material" through four themes - glass, feathers, gold paints, and veils - in relation to specific individuals, material milieus, and interpretative communities. In examining these four types of materialities and object groups, which were attached to different sensory regimes and valorizations, this book charts how each underwent significant changes during this period.

About the Author
Susanna Burghartz is Professor of Renaissance and Early Modern History at the University of Basel. Lucas Burkart is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance History at the University of Basel. Christine Goettler, Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Bern, specializes in the art of early modern Europe. She has published widely on collecting practices, the interactions between various arts and crafts, the alchemy of color, and the changing relations between art and nature and between natural philosophical and religious traditions. Her current book project explores Peter Paul Rubens's engagement with the global world of seventeenth-century Antwerp. Ulinka Rublack is Professor of Early Modern History at Cambridge University and Fellow of St John's College.


Book Information
ISBN 9789463728959
Author Susanna Burghartz
Format Hardback
Page Count 418
Imprint Amsterdam University Press
Publisher Amsterdam University Press