Remembering the Habsburgs: Dynastic Funeral Monuments in Early Modern Europe
61st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America
Berlin, March 26-28, 2015

The past two decades have seen growing interest in early modern funerary monuments and the religious and socio-political contexts in which they emerged. Nevertheless, the monuments of the diverse and numerous members of the Habsburg dynasty – found all over modern-day Northern and Southern Europe – have not yet received the investigation they deserve. Brigitta Lauro’s 2007 catalogue “Die Grabstätten der Habsburger” lays the foundations for such research, but these monuments should be (re-)examined in greater depth, as key objects for both historians and art historians, to better understand the practices of commissioning funerary sculpture in general and their importance within early modern society. This panel therefore intends to investigate, from a broader view, early modern Habsburg funerary monuments, larger funerary chapels, their settings and the ephemeral aspects around their installation, such as funeral processions and temporary architectural structures. Areas to be addressed include temporality, materiality, memoria and fama, dynastic identity, framing and viewership, as well as whether or not these “objects of memory” can be understood as a cohesive group within the wider context of funerary monument production in early modern Europe.

We are seeking papers addressing specific Habsburg funerary monuments or the development of these artworks more broadly after about 1500. Please send a paper title, abstract (max. 150 words), a short biography (max. 300 words) and a full CV to Ivo Raband (ivo.raband@ikg.unibe.ch) and Léon Lock (leon.lock@asro.kuleuven.be). The submission deadline is 31 May 2014.

Source de l’information : The Renaissance Society of America