Sacred Eyes: Pilgrims’ Watching Ceremonies in Renaissance Venice

• In Event: The Pilgrimage to the Holy Land between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Sources and Interpretations

Abstract

Stopping in Venice to board the ships to the Levant, the pilgrims observed and described the everyday life of Venice and were attracted by religious and civic ceremonies, particularly the Spring ones. The result was drafting extensive depictions of dogal rites, civic processions and the most famous Wedding of the Sea. The depictions constitute a precious source for the Venetian festive life and the European religious mentality of the late Medieval times and Renaissance, and have a unique character because the foreign culture of the observer had to confront the expressive gestures of the peculiar civic religion of the Serenissima. The paper questions how the pilgrims’ narrative of ceremonies can be used to inquiry a peculiar urban rituality and, as well the experience of self through traveling in new places and witnessing rites in part familiar, in part unknown.

Author

• Matteo Casini, Suffolk University