Challenging the idea of the Renaissance as a time of increasing worldliness and secularization, this exhibition will show how the period’s intense engagement with material things went hand in hand with its devotional life. A glittering array of sculptures and paintings, jewellery, ceramics, printed images and illustrated books will bear witness to the role of domestic objects in sustaining and inspiring faith. Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, the exhibition will confound the assumption that Catholicism was a religion dominated by priests and ecclesiastical institutions, whilst Protestant families in northern Europe were urged to serve God in their homes. Find out more about the ‘Madonnas and Miracles’ exhibition from the Fitzwilliam Museum’s website.
Preview the exhibition below | See Apollo’s Picks of the Week here
Comb with The Annunciation (c. 1450–1500), possibly Italy, France or Flanders. © Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin.
Jewelled cross pendant (possibly 16th century), Italy. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist (c. 1490–95), Pinturicchio (Bernardino di Betto). © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Maiolica panel, painted with a half-length figure of the Virgin with the infant Christ (c. 1600–1700). © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Virgin and Child (c. 1480–90), Studio of Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi). © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
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The problem with portraits