The genetic signatures of people in Spain and Portugal provide new and explicit evidence of the mass conversions of Sephardic Jews and Muslims to Catholicism in the 15th and 16th centuries after Christian armies wrested Spain back from Muslim control, a team of geneticists reports.

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Holy Sepulchers

• Sarah Blick & Rita Tekippe, Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, 2 vols., Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, 104 (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
• Genevi?®ve Bresc-Bautier, ‚ÄúLes imitations du Saint-Sepulcre de Jerusalem (IXe‚ÄìXVe si?®cles): Arch?©ologie d‚Äôune d?©votion,‚Äù Revue d‚ÄôHistoire de la Spiritualit?© 50 (1974): 319‚Äì342.
• N.C. Brooks, The Sepulchre of Christ in Art and Liturgy, University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, 7.2 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1921).
• Ludwig H. Heydenreich, ‚ÄúDie Cappella Rucellai von San Pancrazio in Florenz,‚Äù in Millard Meiss, ed., De artibus opuscula XL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, 2 vols. (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1961), 1:219‚Äì229.
• F.W. Kent, ‚ÄúThe Letters Genuine and Spurious of Giovanni Rucellai,‚Äù Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 37 (1974): 342‚Äì349.
• Richard Krautheimer, ‚ÄúIntroduction to an ‚ÄòIconography of Mediaeval Architecture,‚Äô‚Äù Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 1‚Äì33.
• Justin E. A. Kroesen, The Sepulchrum Domini through the Ages: Its Form and Function (Leuven: Peeters, 2000).
• Colin Morris, The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West: From the Beginning to 1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
• ———-, ‚ÄúBringing the Holy Sepulchre to the West: S. Stefano, Bologna, from the Fifth to the Twentieth Century,‚Äù in R.N. Swanson, ed., The Church Retrospective, Studies in Church History, 33 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press for The Ecclesiastical History Society, 1997), 31‚Äì60.
• Damiano Neri, Il S. Sepulcro riprodotto in Occidente (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1971).
• Robert Ousterhout, ‚ÄúLoca Sancta and the Architectural Responses to Pilgrimage,‚Äù in idem, ed., The Blessings of Pilgrimage (Urbana/Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 108‚Äì124.
• ———-, ‚ÄúThe Church of Santo Stefano: A ‚ÄòJerusalem‚Äô in Bologna,‚Äù Gesta 20 (1981): 311‚Äì321.

[It is interesting to note that the same pattern of replication occurred in medieval Ethiopia, as well; see Marilyn E. Heldman, “Architectural Symbolism, Sacred Geography and the Ethiopian Church,” Journal of Religion in Africa 22 (1992): 222–241.]

Via Crucis & Sacri Monti

• Amilcare Barbero, ed., Atlante dei sacri monti, calvari e complessi devozionali europei (Novara: Istituto geografico De Agostini, 2001).
• Philippe Baud, Chemin de croix: les origines d‚Äôune d?©votion populaire (Paris: M?©diaspaul, 1995).
• David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 192‚Äì245.
• Sergio Gensini, ed., La ‚ÄúGerusalemme‚Äù di San Vivaldo e i Sacri Monti in Europa (Firenze‚ÄìSan Vivaldo, 11‚Äì13 settembre 1986), Centro internazionale di studi ‚ÄúLa ‚ÄòGerusalemme‚Äô di San Vivaldo,‚Äô Montaione, 1 (Montaione: Comune di Montaione, 1989).
• Ces?°reo Gil Atrio, ‚ÄúEspa?±a, ¬øcu?±a del Viacrucis?‚Äù Archivo Ibero-Americano 11[n.s.] (1951): 63‚Äì92.
• Pedro Jos?© Pradillo y Esteban, V??a Crucis, Calvarios y Sacromontes: arte y religiosidad popular en la contrareforma. Guadalajara, un caso excepcional (Guadalajara: Diputaci??n Provincial de Guadalajara, 1996).
• Kathryn Rudy, ‚ÄúNorthern European Visual Responses to Holy Land Pilgrimage, 1453‚Äì1550,‚Äù PhD dissertation, Art History, Columbia University, 2001.
• Am?©d?©e Teetaert da Zedelgem, ‚ÄúAper?ßu historique sur la d?©votion au chemin de la croix,‚Äù Collectanea franciscana 19 (1949): 45‚Äì142.
• Herbert Thurston, The Stations of the Cross: An Account of their History and Devotional Purpose (London: Burns & Oates, 1906).
• Dorino Tuniz, ed., I Sacri Monti nella cultura religiosa e artistica del Nord Italia (Cinisello Balsamo [Milan]: San Paolo, 2005).

Carmelite Deserts

• Trevor Johnson, ‚ÄúGardening for God: Carmelite Deserts and the Sacralisation of Natural Space in Counter-Reformation Spain,‚Äù in Will Coster & Andrew Spicer, eds., Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 193‚Äì210.
• J.M. Mu?±oz Jim?©nez, ‚ÄúYermos y Sacromontes: Itinerarios de V??a Crucis en los Desiertos Carmelitanos,‚Äù in Los caminos y el arte. Actas, VI Congreso Espan?µl de Historia del Arte C.E.H.A., Santiago de Compostela, 16‚Äì20 de junio de 1986, 3 vols., Cursos y congresos da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 54 (Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 1989), 3:171‚Äì182.

Two paintings in particular stood out to me. The first was Juan Bautista Maino’s 1612 Adoration of the Magi. (Apologies for the terrible picture, but it’s all that I could find to link to. A better image is available in the slideshow on the MFA’s website.) To my untrained eye, the painting looks virtually identical to one of the belenes, or cr?™che scenes, still popular in Spain. The ivy on the stones, the appearance of the Magi… Maino’s scene is a dead-ringer for its modern three-dimensional counterparts. This makes perfect sense to me: “Belenismo,” the art of making lifelike belenes, was essentially imported from Naples in the early seventeenth century, at precisely the time that Maino was painting. (Fow what it’s worth, iIt is still considered a high art in Spain, and every December the city of Madrid assembles a walking tour of the city’s most impressive examples.)

The other painting that caught my eye was Luis Trist?°n de Escamilla’s 1613 Crucifixion. (No online photo, I’m afraid.) As one of my fellow participants pointed out, deep in the background of the painting, barely visible behind the crucified Christ’s feet, the city of Toledo stands in for Jerusalem. This may just be an example of a tendency which I tend to associate with northern art of the period: that is, to transpose biblical events to local landscapes, perhaps to make it easier for the beholder to feel that he/she is really witnessing the scene before him/her. But this may also be a reference to the legend, popularized in the early 1570s by the court historian Esteban de Garibay, that Toledo literally was the New Jerusalem. The legend rested on two bases: first, the alleged topographical identity of Jerusalem and Toledo; and second, the fact that Toledo is supposed to have been founded by a contingent of Israelites brought to Spain in the sixth century BC by Nebuchadnezzar, in the period commonly known as the “Babylonian Captivity.”

In any case, it is a terrific show, and I hope that it will receive many visitors!