1st Edition

The Legend of Veronica in Early Modern Art

By Katherine T. Brown Copyright 2020
    186 Pages 15 Color & 65 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    186 Pages 15 Color & 65 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    In The Legend of Veronica in Early Modern Art, Katherine T. Brown explores the lore of the apocryphal character of Veronica and the history of the “true image” relic as factors in the Franciscans’ placement of her character into the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) as the Sixth Station, in both Jerusalem and Western Europe, around the turn of the fifteenth century.

    Katherine T. Brown examines how the Franciscans adopted and adapted the legend of Veronica to meet their own evangelical goals by intervening in the fabric of Jerusalem to incorporate her narrative − which is not found in the Gospels − into an urban path constructed for pilgrims, as well as in similar participatory installations in churchyards and naves across Western Europe. This book proposes plausible reasons for the subsequent proliferation of works of art depicting Veronica, both within and independent of the Stations of the Cross, from the early fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, theology, and medieval and Renaissance studies.

    Introduction  1. Veronica in Legend and Literature  2. The Sudarium Relic as Material Object in the West  3. Via Crucis 4. Jerusalem Abroad and Theological Rationales 5. Viewing Veronica through the Lens of Gender 6. The Iconography of Veronica in Western European Art. Epilogue

    Biography

    Katherine T. Brown is Director of the Honors Program, Director of Museum Studies, and Associate Professor of Art History at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio.

    “This book makes an important contribution to the scholarship of true images of saints and relics. It successfully elaborates the topic of the apocryphal character of Veronica and its placement by the Franciscans into the Via Crucis as the Sixth Station”.

    -- Renaissance Quarterly