A01=Harold Samuel Stone
Author_Harold Samuel Stone
book history methodologies
broadsides as cultural artifacts
Category=DSBD
Category=JBCC9
Category=NHD
Category=QRM
Category=QRVG
cathedral crypt discoveries
Catholic intellectual traditions
church governance strategies
church-community interactions
circulation of pamphlets
clerical influence campaigns
clerical vs. popular interpretations
community reactions to discoveries
contested narratives of sainthood
contested sacred remains
cultural history of relics
cultural memory surrounding relics
devotional controversies
devotional storytel
early modern Catholic culture
early modern evidence practices
early modern information exchange
early modern media ecology
early modern rumor culture
ecclesiastical authority struggles
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
historical imagination in Catholic Europe
Italian baroque religious life
Italian religious controversies
lay engagement with theology
manuscript circulation networks
Milanese religious politics
narrative reconstructions of belief
papal interventions in local belief
popular spirituality in Italy
print culture in Northern Italy
public discourse in Pavia
public sphere formation
reading habits in early modern cities
relic authentication debates
relic controversies across centuries
relic veneration history
religious communication networks
religious debates in print
religious dispute literature
sacred history reinterpretation
scholarly polemics in print
seventeenth-century devotional practices
spiritual authority negotiation
spiritual politics in Lombardy
textual persuasion strategies
urban readership in Italy
Venetian reading audiences
Product details
- ISBN 9781558493889
- Weight: 260g
- Dimensions: 160 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 03 Jan 2003
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In 1695, workers in Pavia, Italy, chanced upon a collection of bones in the crypt of the Cathedral of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro. The workers later testified that they had seen the name of St Augustine written in charcoal on the surface of the casket they had uncovered. Yet by the time of the official inquest, all traces of the writing had disappeared. Offering insights into urban literacy and conceptions of reading, this text explores the controversy that ensued over the alleged discovery of Augustine's bones. Manuscripts, broadsides, pamphlets - even whole books - were devoted to proving or disproving the authenticity of the remains. Although these works were addressed to members of the clergy, they were also intended for the general reading public in Pavia, Milan and Venice. Their dissemination helped create a temporary public sphere in which the merits of the case were examined in a spirit of free debate. A re-examination of the dispute over St Augustine's bones illuminates aspects of Catholic spirituality in Northern Italy during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It also reveals the different ways in which Catholic scholars, local religious leaders, and the papal administration sought to influence and direct local popular religious belief and practices. Although the controversy was officially resolved by the papacy in 1728, the debate over the relics of San Pietro continued into the 20th century. By combining methods developed in the burgeoning field of the history of the book with the tools of cultural analysis, Harold Stone not only recovers the stories surrounding St Augustine's bones, but also reconstructs the mental world of those who read or heard them.
