Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna [Paperback]

An analysis of the social, political and religious role of confraternities in Renaissance Bologna, first published in 1995.The Renaissance is still often characterised as a period of religious indifference. This book examines the confraternities, lay groups through which Italians of the Renaissance expressed their individual and co llective religious beliefs. Intensely local and predominantly artisinal, the confraternities shaped the civic religious cult through charitable activities, public shrines and processions. The book puts these religious activities into the turbulent social and political context of Renaissance Bologna.The Renaissance is still often characterised as a period of religious indifference. This book examines the confraternities, lay groups through which Italians of the Renaissance expressed their individual and co llective religious beliefs. Intensely local and predominantly artisinal, the confraternities shaped the civic religious cult through charitable activities, public shrines and processions. The book puts these religious activities into the turbulent social and political context of Renaissance Bologna.The Renaissance is still often wrongly characterized as a period of religious indifference. Contradicting that viewpoint, this book examines confraternities: lay groups through which Italians of the Renaissance expressed their individual and collective religious beliefs. Intensely local and dominated by artisans and craftsmen, the confraternities shaped the civic religious cult through various activities such as charitable work, public shrines, and processions. This book puts these religious activities into the turbulent social and political context of Renaissance Bologna.Introduction; Prologue; 1. The early quattrocento; 2. Lay spirituality and confraternal worship; 3. The mechanics of worship; 4. Communal identity, administration and finances; 5. Confraternal charity and the civic cult in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; lÓ&