FRH conference

Tourists, Travellers & Pilgrims. Encountering Religious Heritage in Today’s Europe

Vicenza 2016

Helena Wangefelt StrömPhD candidate, Umeå university

(New) Models ofContemporary Pilgrimage

“Enchantment is the means through which we may gain access to sacredness. Entertainment is the means through which we distance ourselves from it.”

― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Starting points

• PhD project on Heritagisation of religion: is religious heritage dead or alive? Does the killing function of heritagisation (Kirshenblatt Gimblett, O’Neill) apply to sacred objects, places, and practices?• Discussion today: Museums the new churches,

Churches the new museums. New challenges (or maybe not so new..?)• From pilgrim to tourist – to pilgrim tourist?

Collectiveness, individual development, and inner journeys on social media

“Devotees of the cult are often seen in the great museums of Europe. You know them by the long, thin books they carry, bound in green or maroon. Sometimes they walk the isles, studying the printed pages. Sometimes they sit, lips moving as they pass on the words to fellow-devotees: or they read silently, in private contemplation. From time to time some look up towards a part of the church, although they seem regretful about looking away from the print. The books are Michelin Guides. The devotees are tourists. They are trying to imagine the past.”

– Donald Horne, The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History (1984)

From pilgrim to tourist

From sacred relic to museum object

Relic cupboard S Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, 16th century (Byzantine icon from Constantinople)

Augsburg Art CabinetLate 16th/early 17th centuryGift to Gustavus Adolphus in 1632(Uppsala University collections)

Giacomo Lauro, Le sette chiese di Roma (first ed. 1599)

Fioravante Martinelli, Roma ricercata nel suo sito (1650, first ed. 1644)

The tourguideGiovanni Alto (Johann Hoch)

Guidebooks: sacredness and heritage

The relic of the Blood of Christ(Sansovino, 1581)

“In this place are kept the relics and the jewellery. The principal one is an ampoule with the true blood of Christ, which has come to Barutti from the town of Jerusalem, from where it was sent to Venice from Constantinople, from Doge Henrico Dandolo. This is displayed twice a year, the Holy Thursday for schools and confraternities, & the vigil of the Resurrection for the women.”

Travel journal of Mårten Törnhielm, 1687-88

The relic of the Blood of Christ(Törnhielm, 1687)

“In a shrine of guilded silver is a small cup or Box of pure gold, with Greek characters around, which mean: Sanguinis Virifici hilare Recepachia, et immaculati verbi latore fluentis.Within this of gold, is now another of crystal, carved with a crucifix. The lid is of Iaspis, with these words inscribed: Iesus Christus Rex Gloriae. Before this were shown 2 drops of blood, dried together with soil…”

Heritagisation of the sacred: a time line

• Pilgrimages and Jubilees (Anni Santi)

• The Renaissance and Humanism: Historicizing, aestheticizing and materializing

• Reformation and Council of Trent: Defining - Cardinal Paleotti’s De sacris et profanis imaginibus (1582)

• Private collecting, art cabinets, wunderkammers and Counter Reformation

• Grand Tour and heritage/cultural tourism: Guide books and travel descriptions

• Emerge and development of institutional museums

(Fragment of medieval Pietà, Bode-Museum, Berlin)

A corner of cabinet (Frans II Francken, 1636)

Holy image?Museum object?

Touch or not touch?Use or not use?

Cultual use, cultural use – or are both possible..?

Heritagisation effects on relation to holy matter

From… To…touching no touching

kissing respectful distance

sensuality material preservation

interaction information

bilateral dialogue with one-way (cultural/historical) material sacredness admiration

art and historic roots religious motives and context reinforce reinforce religious narratives artistic and historical values and values

Exhibition, Uppsala Cathedral, 2014

ContestingNarratives…or hybrid narratives (f ex France)?

Summary• Churches, relics and religious objects have been main goals for travellers through more

than two millenia. For different reasons, in different shapes and cultural contexts, but still.

• Religious objects, places and practices have had multiple and hybrid uses through time: Religious, political, aesthetic, historic, legitimizing, nationalistic, etc. In Europe from the Renaissance and onwards, a gradual shift from a cultual use to a cultural use of the sacred has taken place. But: co-existence is possible (France)…

• Through this, it has been made possible for a visitor to disregard the sacred qualities and emphasize the historical, artistic and cultural ones. Museums and the heritage framework become (unintentional?) reinforcers, and churches and religious places might lock up themselves in a museum case.

• Today: Increased interest in inner journeys inspired by old pilgrim traditions, but entirely different. From collective and institutionalized to individual and independent, from private modesty to selfies and Facebook. Are the religious heritages prepared to meet this – as living entities within a heritage frame..?

Thank you!helena.wangefelt.strom@umu.se

www.academia.eduwww.emodir.net

Blog Holy Smoke: holysmokephdblog.blogspot.seTwitter: helena_w_strom

Frictions between touristing heretics and local sacredness

A company of six tourists, all “of the Religion, whence we had no great respect for the relics, but their ware some others their that were papists; who forsooth bit to sit doune on their knees and kist. At which I could not contein my selfe from laughing.”

(Lord Fountainhall, France, 1660’s)

“Les femmes se frappent la poitrine, s’arrachent les cheveux & se plaignent au Saint de ses rigueurs. La défiance fait porter des regards inquiets sur les témoins qu’on peut soupconner d’une foie suspecte, & l’on a vu des Etrangers devenir la victime d’une dévotion changée tout-à-coup en fanatisme. Un Consul d’Angleterre assistant à cette cérémonie, dans un de ces momens dangereux où les faveurs du Saint se faisoient trop attendre, fut averti de se retirer; & le Miracle qui s’opéra bientôt après, ne laissa pa douter au peuple qu’il avoit deviné la cause du retardement.”

(Abbé de Saint Non, Paris 1781)

"Il miracolo è avvenuto e erano nove eretici!".

(Montesquieu, Viaggio in Italia, 1730)