Toward a Catalogue of Confraternal Material in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Abstract

This article introduces my current work-in-progress towards the identification, analysis and cataloguing of written and artistic sources belonging to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan that focus on the increasingly important areas of confraternities, understood as spontaneously formed lay groups for devotion and mutual assistance, and lay charitable organizations, known in Italian as luoghi pii. I am interested in both the original material cultural objects (for example, paintings, sculptures, books, chalices, vestments, banners, flails, crosses, furniture and charity chits) and the original conceptual cultural objects (for example, lauds, music, processions and theatre pieces) that were commissioned, or purchased readymade and adapted, by Milanese confraternities and luoghi pii for use by the institutions’ members themselves or for use in their efforts dedicated to the public outside their institutions. My interest extends to things produced by others and given for various reasons to the confraternities (such as official ducal recognition documents) only insofar as they might have influenced those things produced by the confraternities for their own internal or external use. My current work also includes compiling an analytical table of all known Milanese confraternities and luoghi pii, a project obviously destined to be eternally a “work-in-progress,” but which I believe is fundamental for mentally mapping the context of in-depth studies. My contribution to the RSA 2007 Miami conference—published in Confraternitas that same year—presented the general confraternal situation in Milan to English-language readers and introduced my research in these areas.