Saints & Sinners: Caravaggio & the Baroque Image

Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1999. Softcover. VG (Ex-library with label and pocket and few marks, average edge wear, otherwise clean.). Maroon and gold color-illustrated wraps with black lettering; 235 pp. with 30 color plates and 40 bw figures. This exhibition at Boston College's McMullen Museum of Art (February-May 1999) takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying the style, subject matter, and functions of religious art in Italy between 1580-1680. The conceptual centerpiece of the exhibition is Caravaggio's recently rediscovered The Taking of Christ. The catalogue reproduces in color all of the paintings in the exhibition and includes a collection of essays that analyze how some of the period's most important artistic, religious, and social concerns are encapsulated within the various images. Contributors include Franco Mormando (Exhibition Organizer and Catalogue Editor), Gauvin Bailey, Noel Barber, Sergio Benedetti, Pamela Jones, John W. O'Malley, John Varriano, Josephine von Henneberg, and Thomas Worcester. Contents as follows: Preface: The murder behind the discovery / Noel Barber -- Editor's introduction / Franco Mormando -- A historiographical frame for the paintings: recent interpretations of early modern Catholicism / John W. O'Malley -- The power of images: paintings and viewers in Caravaggio's Italy / Pamela M. Jones -- Trent and beyond: arts of transformation / Thomas Worcester -- Teaching the faithful to fly: Mary Magdalene and Peter in Baroque Italy / Franco Mormando -- Cardinal Caesar Baronius, the arts, and the early Christian martyrs / Josephine von Henneberg -- The Jesuits and painting in Italy, 1550-1690: the art of Catholic reform / Gauvin Alexander Bailey -- "Just as your lips approach the lips of your brothers": Judas Iscariot and the kiss of betrayal / Franco Mormando -- Caravaggio and religion / John Varriano -- Classical and religious influences in Caravaggio's painting / Sergio Benedetti.