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The Eschatological Imagination
Space, Time, and Experience (1300â1800)
Series: - Intersections, Volume: 96
How did the early-modern Christian West conceive of the spaces and times of the afterlife? The answer to this question is not obvious for a period that saw profound changes in theology, when the telescope revealed the heavens to be as changeable and imperfect as the earth, and when archaeological and geological investigations made the earth and what lies beneath it another privileged site for the acquisition of new knowledge.
With its focus on the eschatological imagination at a time of transformation in cosmology, this volume opens up new ways of studying early-modern religious ideas, representations, and practices. The individual chapters explore a wealth of â at times little-known â visual and textual sources. Together they highlight how closely concepts and imaginaries of the hereafter were intertwined with the realities of the here and now.
Contributors: Matteo Al Kalak, Monica Azzolini, Wietse de Boer, Christine Göttler, Luke Holloway, Martha McGill, Walter S. Melion, Mia M. Mochizuki, Laurent Paya, Raphaèle Preisinger, Aviva Rothman, Minou Schraven, Anna-Claire Stinebring, Jane Tylus, and Antoinina Bevan Zlatar.
With its focus on the eschatological imagination at a time of transformation in cosmology, this volume opens up new ways of studying early-modern religious ideas, representations, and practices. The individual chapters explore a wealth of â at times little-known â visual and textual sources. Together they highlight how closely concepts and imaginaries of the hereafter were intertwined with the realities of the here and now.
Contributors: Matteo Al Kalak, Monica Azzolini, Wietse de Boer, Christine Göttler, Luke Holloway, Martha McGill, Walter S. Melion, Mia M. Mochizuki, Laurent Paya, Raphaèle Preisinger, Aviva Rothman, Minou Schraven, Anna-Claire Stinebring, Jane Tylus, and Antoinina Bevan Zlatar.
Wietse de Boer is the Phillip R. Shriver Professor of History at Miami University (Ohio). His research interests are focused on Italian religious and cultural history (15thâ17th centuries). His books include The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in Counter-Reformation Milan (2001; Italian trans. 2004) and Art in Dispute: Catholic Debates at the Time of Trent (2021).
Christine Göttler is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Bern. Her research interests focus on the intersections between art, natural philosophy, and religion, the relationship between landscape and nature, and early modern notions of materiality and immateriality. Her publications include the monograph Last Things: Art and the Religious Imagination in the Age of Reform (2010).
Christine Göttler is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Bern. Her research interests focus on the intersections between art, natural philosophy, and religion, the relationship between landscape and nature, and early modern notions of materiality and immateriality. Her publications include the monograph Last Things: Art and the Religious Imagination in the Age of Reform (2010).
A âfascinating volume [...] My brief remarks can only hint at the wonderfully diverse and thought-provoking essays in this volume, which has been sensitively edited by de Boer and Göttler.â
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas, Austin. In: Journal of Jesuit Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2025), pp. 513â516.
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas, Austin. In: Journal of Jesuit Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2025), pp. 513â516.
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
1 The Space-Time Dimension of Early Modern Eschatology: An Introduction
âWietse de Boer and Christine Göttler
2 Depicting the Universal Conflagration: Time, Space, and Artifice in Peter Paul Rubensâs Fall of the Damned
âChristine Göttler
3 A Castle in the Air? Space, Time, and Sensation in Gabriel de Henaoâs Empyreologia
âWietse de Boer
4 Keplerâs Somnium as Purgatorial Journey
âAviva Rothman
5 The Birth of Hell: An Angel, His Fall, and His Reign among Us
âMatteo Al Kalak
6 âOh, How Unlike the Place from Whence They Fell!â John Miltonâs Primordial Hell in Paradise Lost
âAntoinina Bevan Zlatar
7 Godâs Underlands: Athanasius Kircherâs Epic Journey in the Mundus Subterraneus
âMonica Azzolini
8 Ecstatic Visions: The Eschatological Imagination of Spanish Mystic Juana de la Cruz (d. 1534)
âMinou Schraven
9 Describing the Inconceivable in Eighteenth-Century Methodist and Quaker Visions of the Afterlife
âMartha McGill and Luke Holloway
10 From the Isle of Patmos to the Territory of the Plumed Serpent: Eschatological Imaginations Sparked by the Virgin of Guadalupe in Colonial New Spain
âRaphaèle Preisinger
11 Pondering Mary: Michelangeloâs Farewell to Dante
âJane Tylus
12 The Calvinist Theatre of God as a Pleasure Garden at the Time of the First French War of Religion (ca. 1560)
âLaurent Paya
13 The Desert at the Worldâs End: Eschatological Space in Van Hemessenâs Hermit Landscapes
âAnna-Claire Stinebring
14 âAbstracto igitur animoâ: Eschatological Image-Making in the Emblematic Spiritual Exercises of Jan David, S.J.
âWalter S. Melion
15 The Jesuit Martyrdom Landscape and the Optics of Death
âMia M. Mochizuki
Index Nominum
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
1 The Space-Time Dimension of Early Modern Eschatology: An Introduction
âWietse de Boer and Christine Göttler
Part 1: Cosmology and Eschatology
2 Depicting the Universal Conflagration: Time, Space, and Artifice in Peter Paul Rubensâs Fall of the Damned
âChristine Göttler
3 A Castle in the Air? Space, Time, and Sensation in Gabriel de Henaoâs Empyreologia
âWietse de Boer
4 Keplerâs Somnium as Purgatorial Journey
âAviva Rothman
Part 2: Underlands and Netherworlds
5 The Birth of Hell: An Angel, His Fall, and His Reign among Us
âMatteo Al Kalak
6 âOh, How Unlike the Place from Whence They Fell!â John Miltonâs Primordial Hell in Paradise Lost
âAntoinina Bevan Zlatar
7 Godâs Underlands: Athanasius Kircherâs Epic Journey in the Mundus Subterraneus
âMonica Azzolini
Part 3: Visions of Heaven and Hell
8 Ecstatic Visions: The Eschatological Imagination of Spanish Mystic Juana de la Cruz (d. 1534)
âMinou Schraven
9 Describing the Inconceivable in Eighteenth-Century Methodist and Quaker Visions of the Afterlife
âMartha McGill and Luke Holloway
10 From the Isle of Patmos to the Territory of the Plumed Serpent: Eschatological Imaginations Sparked by the Virgin of Guadalupe in Colonial New Spain
âRaphaèle Preisinger
Part 4: Spiritual Reckoning and Refuge
11 Pondering Mary: Michelangeloâs Farewell to Dante
âJane Tylus
12 The Calvinist Theatre of God as a Pleasure Garden at the Time of the First French War of Religion (ca. 1560)
âLaurent Paya
Part 5: Sites of Purgation, Meditation, and Martyrdom
13 The Desert at the Worldâs End: Eschatological Space in Van Hemessenâs Hermit Landscapes
âAnna-Claire Stinebring
14 âAbstracto igitur animoâ: Eschatological Image-Making in the Emblematic Spiritual Exercises of Jan David, S.J.
âWalter S. Melion
15 The Jesuit Martyrdom Landscape and the Optics of Death
âMia M. Mochizuki
Index Nominum
Scholars and students of early-modern European culture with an interest in interdisciplinary studies that explore and redefine the relationships among religion, science, art, and literature. Keywords: eschatology, cosmology, Scientific Revolution, chronotope.