The Emotional Dimension of Shrine Formation in Early Modern Catholicism

Abstract

Early modern Catholic shrines were sites of emotional encounters. It was there that the sacred manifested and lives were changed by miracles. This article contributes to our understanding of what made a shrine legitimate in early modern Catholicism through close examination of the sixteenth-century Italian shrine of the Madonna of Lendinara. The role of miraculous shrines in devotional life came under new scrutiny in the period following the Council of Trent (1545–63). By foregrounding the co-productive relationship between emotions and sacred space, I argue that emotional practices endowed the Lendinara shrine with spiritual authenticity and contributed towards its institutional approval.