Montag, 16. Dezember 2024 – 18:30 Uhr – Hörsaal 1

The Society of Jesus was among the most prominent artistic powerhouses of early modern Catholicism. Whereas the Jesuits’ wide influence in such fields as the figurative arts, architecture, and drama has been recognized in an abundant literature, their relationship with music has been less thoroughly investigated. In the 1970s Culley and McNaspy debunked the myth of the “non-singing Jesuits”, inspiring further studies. It took, however, until the so-called sonic turn in the humanities and the rise of historical sound studies around 2000, before the question of Jesuits and music could be reframed in a more comprehensive way. We have, thus, transitioned from an exclusive focus on the sparse intersections between the Jesuits’ ministry and elite music to a wider consideration of their sonic culture: how did they use and conceive sound and music? how did they regulate noise and silence? what was the role of communal singing? what was the place of sound in the experience of processions, confraternity gatherings, or popular missions?

In this presentation, I will focus on three case studies. First, the examination of a composite book preserved at the Biblioteca Braidense Milan will allow us to enter the workshop of a post-Tridentine catechist, c.1580: we will see how he assembled various materials, suggesting the interaction of verbal, musical, and visual implements in the teaching of the doctrine. Secondly, the close reading of a sermon on Corpus Christi by the Jesuit preacher Georg Scherer (c. 1540-1605) will furnish us with a broader understanding of how media and sensory stimuli combined in the defining rituals of the period. Finally, we will consider the figure of a Jesuit ‘musical missionary’, Anton Sepp (1655–1733): a native of South Tyrol, after substantial training on European soil he moved to Latin America in 1689, and became music teacher, dance master, and instrument maker in the reducciones.