doi.org
Staging a Christian World and Shaping the “Orient(s)” in the Apostolic Palace (ca. 1560–1630)
Abstract This study, based on largely unpublished primary sources, examines the incorporation, display, and reconfigurations of the “Orient(s)”—a Western-constructed concept encompassing multiple decontextualized cultural realities—within the Vatican Apostolic Palace during the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the first quarter of the seventeenth century. It brings to light, in several cases for the first time, the early modern papal Kunst- und Wunderkammern, the palatine treasures, the Vatican Library, Castel Sant’Angelo and other spaces in which artefacts and natural marvels from Asia, America, and Africa were preserved, exhibited and reframed within new schemes. The Apostolic Palace constitutes a unique case embodying the collections, worldview, and agenda of the head of a religious state in Europe that articulated a Christianized vision of a proto-global world tied to spiritual authority. Particular attention is given to the materialities associated with the Orient(s) and their politico-theological and ideological valences, as well as to their interaction with apostolic spaces and their role in shaping the Holy See’s early modern worldview. The study privileges a focus on East Asia—an especially documentable and revealing context—while also considering the Ottoman Empire, and opening a comparative perspective on practices involving other early modern “Orient(s).” Ultimately, this inquiry constitutes a critical step not only toward recovering and reconsidering dematerialized proto-global histories, but also to assess the Holy See’s engagement with the world through these histories, the construction of Orientalism, and the significance of the Vatican’s ethnographic collections today.
