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Practising Piety
Spiritual Intermediality and Devotion in Early Modern Europe
Series: - Intersections, Volume: 101
Situated at the intersection of theology, history, literature, and the arts, this edited volume introduces the concept of spiritual intermediality and highlights its central role in early modern piety across various Christian denominations. The case studies present a diverse array of perspectives that explore different forms and functions of intermediality in devotional practices of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, thereby enhancing our understanding of the medial conditions and intermedial aspects of devotion during one of the most fruitful periods of devotional arts and practices in Europe.
By arguing that early modern devotion often relied on intermedial forms of expression to unfold its full semantic and performative potential, the volume sheds new light on the rich web of media that shaped early modern Christian culture.
Contributors include: Wietse de Boer, Marlene Dirschauer, Marc Föcking, Rogier Gerrits, Tara Hamling, Jenny Körber, Judith Lipperheide, Cosima Macco, Alec Ryrie, Franziska Schreiber, James Simpson, Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Stephanie Wodianka, and Katharina Worms.
By arguing that early modern devotion often relied on intermedial forms of expression to unfold its full semantic and performative potential, the volume sheds new light on the rich web of media that shaped early modern Christian culture.
Contributors include: Wietse de Boer, Marlene Dirschauer, Marc Föcking, Rogier Gerrits, Tara Hamling, Jenny Körber, Judith Lipperheide, Cosima Macco, Alec Ryrie, Franziska Schreiber, James Simpson, Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Stephanie Wodianka, and Katharina Worms.
Marlene Dirschauer earned a doctoral degree in Comparative literature from Freie Universität Berlin. Her main areas of research are British modernist literature and early modern devotional poetry. She is the author of Modernist Waterscapes: Water, Imagination and Materiality in the Works of Virginia Woolf (2023).
Rogier Gerrits is a literary scholar at the University of Hamburg where he obtained a doctoral degree in Romance Studies. He has published articles on early modern French literature and is co-editor of Reproducing Miracles. On Media and the Miraculous in Early Modern Europe (2025).
Marc Föcking is Professor of Romance Studies at the University of Hamburg. He has written books and many articles on Italian spiritual poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and on French novels and medical knowledge in the nineteenth century. He is co-editor of A Companion to Anticlassicisms in the Cinquecento (2023).
Alec Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University. He has extensively published on the history of the Reformation and of Protestantism more widely. He is the author of Being Protestant in Reformation Britain (2013) and Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt (2019).
Rogier Gerrits is a literary scholar at the University of Hamburg where he obtained a doctoral degree in Romance Studies. He has published articles on early modern French literature and is co-editor of Reproducing Miracles. On Media and the Miraculous in Early Modern Europe (2025).
Marc Föcking is Professor of Romance Studies at the University of Hamburg. He has written books and many articles on Italian spiritual poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and on French novels and medical knowledge in the nineteenth century. He is co-editor of A Companion to Anticlassicisms in the Cinquecento (2023).
Alec Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University. He has extensively published on the history of the Reformation and of Protestantism more widely. He is the author of Being Protestant in Reformation Britain (2013) and Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt (2019).
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
1 Introduction
âMarlene Dirschauer, Rogier Gerrits, Marc Föcking and Alec Ryrie
2 From Representation to Emblematics: Diego LaÃnez on Images and Texts
âWietse de Boer
3 Crises of Mediation and the Emergence of the Aesthetic in Early Modern England
âJames Simpson
4 The Sacred Sound of Silence: On the Intermediality of the Unvoiced Oraison mentale in French and Italian Religious Poetry (Anne Picardet, Jean Crasset, Lucrezia Marinella)
âStephanie Wodianka
5 Framing the Word: Presenting Religious Texts as âComelyâ Ornament in Post-Reformation England
âTara Hamling
6 Elevating the Soul: Annotation and Intermediality in French Meditation Books
âRogier Gerrits
7 âWrit with Blood and Tearsâ: The Intermediality of Body and Writing in Early Modern English and Italian Devotional Poetry
âMarlene Dirschauer and Marc Föcking
8 The Word of God in Protestant England: Sites of Prayer, the Eucharist and the Bible
âAlec Ryrie
9 Staging the Holy Sacrament: Images, Ornamenta and Teatri Sacri â on the Ritual of the Quarantore and the Jesuitsâ Use of Media in Early Modern Rome
âJenny Körber
10 Working in the Vineyards: Patronage, Processions and Religious Media of Winegrowers in Early Modern Lower Franconia
âJudith Lipperheide
11 From Devotional Text into Art: The Jesuitsâ Promotion of the Litany of Loreto
âJeffrey Chipps Smith
12 Intermediality in the Devotional Lyric of Sibylla Schwarz: A Penitential Song and a Vision of Paradise
âCosima Macco and Katharina Worms
13 Antoine de Nervèze: Intermedial Synergies of Préciosité and Meditation
âFranziska Schreiber
Index Nominum
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
1 Introduction
âMarlene Dirschauer, Rogier Gerrits, Marc Föcking and Alec Ryrie
Part 1: Intermedial Communication
2 From Representation to Emblematics: Diego LaÃnez on Images and Texts
âWietse de Boer
3 Crises of Mediation and the Emergence of the Aesthetic in Early Modern England
âJames Simpson
4 The Sacred Sound of Silence: On the Intermediality of the Unvoiced Oraison mentale in French and Italian Religious Poetry (Anne Picardet, Jean Crasset, Lucrezia Marinella)
âStephanie Wodianka
Part 2: Matters of Intermediality
5 Framing the Word: Presenting Religious Texts as âComelyâ Ornament in Post-Reformation England
âTara Hamling
6 Elevating the Soul: Annotation and Intermediality in French Meditation Books
âRogier Gerrits
7 âWrit with Blood and Tearsâ: The Intermediality of Body and Writing in Early Modern English and Italian Devotional Poetry
âMarlene Dirschauer and Marc Föcking
Part 3: Intermedial Worship
8 The Word of God in Protestant England: Sites of Prayer, the Eucharist and the Bible
âAlec Ryrie
9 Staging the Holy Sacrament: Images, Ornamenta and Teatri Sacri â on the Ritual of the Quarantore and the Jesuitsâ Use of Media in Early Modern Rome
âJenny Körber
10 Working in the Vineyards: Patronage, Processions and Religious Media of Winegrowers in Early Modern Lower Franconia
âJudith Lipperheide
Part 4: Intermedial Transformations
11 From Devotional Text into Art: The Jesuitsâ Promotion of the Litany of Loreto
âJeffrey Chipps Smith
12 Intermediality in the Devotional Lyric of Sibylla Schwarz: A Penitential Song and a Vision of Paradise
âCosima Macco and Katharina Worms
13 Antoine de Nervèze: Intermedial Synergies of Préciosité and Meditation
âFranziska Schreiber
Index Nominum
This interdisciplinary volume addresses scholars interested in early modern religious history, literature and art history as well as in media studies. Keywords are: meditation, Bible, incarnation, representation, spiritual Poetry, devotional literature, Jesuits, Rome, Bavaria, Lower Franconia, England, Italy, Germany, annotation, emblematics, Eucharist devotion, Council of Trent, liturgy, processions, saints, text-images relations, text-music relations, Litany of Loreto, materiality, mental prayer, predestination, iconoclasm, soteriology.