Preziosità e fede. Identità religiosa e pratiche devozionali nel gioiello cinquecentesco e nelle sue rappresentazioni

The aim of this research is to study the link between jewellery and Christian religion. In particular it explores the production and consumption of devotional jewellery in 16th century Veneto. My investigation is based on actual jewels, on written sources, such as inventories, and on depiction of jewellery in coeval paintings. First of all, this thesis defines the object of the research and discusses the methodology of jewellery studies. It afterwards focuses on jewels as a means to express religious identity, and as devotional aids for worship services and domestic prayer. The 16th century has been a crucial period from the point of view of both religious studies and jewellery studies. During this period, the Protestant Reformation became widespread all over Europe. At the same time, major innovations in goldsmith's art dramatically changed the production and consumption of jewellery. These aspects can be deeply investigated within Venetian context, and in particular in the city of Venice and in its Stato da Terra, namely its mainland territories. This area can be identified as the present Veneto region and part of the Lombardia region. The 16th century Venice was one of the places in Europe most famous for production and trading of luxury goods. In this same period Vicenza became an important manufacturing centre, specialized in jewellery production, and also other towns in the Veneto were renowned for their conspicuous jewellery production. At the same time, Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anabaptism, namely three of the major Protestant religions, were being diffused within the Stato da Terra. Many citizens of the Serenissima decide to embrace Protestant ideas. Even though the Venetian state often criticized the supremacy of the Papacy, the Serenissima adopted and never abandoned Catholicism as its state religion. This particular aspect was crucial in the investigation on communication of Protestant identity within a Catholic framework. It should be remembered that, within this context, Protestantism was considered as an heretical movement, and thus Protestant believers could be condemned by the Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition. Therefore, Protestant identity could only be conveyed by means of cryptic symbols. The study investigates this particular aspect together with Protestant influence on Catholic material culture. Research results tend in fact to confirm that existing Catholic symbols that were not common before the advent of the Reformation, became widespread in reaction to Protestantism, being deemed really representative of Catholic identity. To sum up, this research answers the opportunity to recognize and investigate different typologies of jewellery, and to study recurrent patterns and features in these typologies. Yet unpublished and less studied jewels, usually kept in museum's storages are taken into account in this thesis. New hypotheses on famous objects of art are proposed too. Coeval documents, published and unpublished, help to shed new light on how devotional jewels were used in the Veneto, with particular regard to the phenomenon of precious votive offerings. At the same time, representations of jewels in paintings, mainly in portraits, are discussed as a way to analyse more in depth jewellery typologies and the ways and means in which devotional jewels were designed and made use of.