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This article compares sixteenth-century Mexican confraternities (est. since 1527) with the utopian hospital-towns of Vasco de Quiroga, est. in 1530 and 1533–4. Although likewise oriented towards the Christian moral ideals of charity and solidarity, and driven by kindred utopian aspirations and missionizing zeal, the institutions displayed notable differences in their daily operations and governing structures. These differences, the article shows, can be explained by a diverging understanding of the ideal of equality. Whereas Mexican confraternities embraced extant ethnic and individual diversity, aspiring only to as much equality as necessary for the execution of their charitable mission, the vision behind Quiroga’s hospitales espoused civilizational homogeneity, aiming to accomplish as much equality as possible. Consequently, confraternal institutions were run largely “bottom-up” and in a much more open and inclusive manner than the paternalistic “top-down” style of administration characteristic of Quiroga’s hospitales.

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This article examines how Italian dramatists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries represented the Holy Land in the plays that they composed for performance by young men in religious confraternities. The fact that these plays were meant to have a strong pedagogical purpose makes their representation of the Holy Land all the more important not only for the historical aspect of how ancient Palestine was understood and represented in early modern Italy, but also for what this representation meant for Christians and Jews living in early modern Italy. The questions of historical understanding and knowledge are thus closely tied to the questions of the revival of interest in Hebraic knowledge in Renaissance Italy and of the growing anti-Semitism of the time (when ghettos were established in cities such as Venice and Florence, to mention just two). At the same time, when a city such as Florence begins to envision itself and present itself as “the new Jerusalem,” the depiction of Jerusalem (in particular) and the Holy Land (in general) in the religious plays mounted by its young men becomes all the more revealing. The Holy Land can thus be both the exotic Orient and quotidian Florence, part of the East and of the West, both Hebrew and Christian. By extension, the “Jew” can be the “Other” but also the “Self.”

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This article examines the Holy Rosary procession of 1716 held by the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary at the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. Pope Clement XI and several cardinals attended this special procession to celebrate the Holy Roman Empire’s victory over the Ottomans. Careful examination of the available documents opens a window into understanding this procession’s material and liturgical components and the spiritual and social meaning embedded in the complex elements of celebrating the rites. Through processions such as these, the Rosario created a distinctive expression of Roman devotion and became a well-known contributor to the religious and festive life of Rome. This article thus argues that the Rosario processions served as spectacular political, social, and cultural pageants, as well as a hallowed ritual in which the confraternity showcased its devotions and its political and social affiliations, all the while functioning as a means for maintaining and reinforcing social status and civic identities.

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When building the new city of Livorno, the Medici were concerned as much with social and religious life as with buildings, walls, and warehouses. They drew on traditional civic religious forms, and above all confraternities, in order to advance Catholic worship while also seeking to limit Roman intervention and maintain sufficient local agency so as to allow some degree of Jewish, Muslim, and Orthodox worship in the city. We can distinguish three groups of brotherhoods by origin and function in the first century of Livorno’s expansion from the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries: i) Older and existing confraternities that had gathered the local fishermen and the earliest settlers until about 1590; ii) Confraternities founded between the 1590s and the 1630s, often with direct Medici or more general Florentine influence, and focused on meeting cultic and charitable needs; and iii) Confraternities established from the 1630s to the 1670s to fulfill these needs while also organizing activities that responded to challenges and opportunities of Livorno’s particular location. Florentine civic religious models allowed the Medici to build a vibrant Catholic social framework in Livorno while keeping Tridentine ecclesiastical forces at bay, at least until the coming of the more traditionally pious Grand Duke Cosimo III in 1670.