Jenkins_Object_Annotation_5

Context: This is a printed portrait of Saint Francis Xavier by Nicolas Perrey, produced during the 1656 Plague in Naples. These prints could be bought by street sellers and used to heal those affected by the bubonic plague.

Subject: This specific image of Saint Francis Xavier was made popular by Marcello Mastrilli, whose testimony claimed that it was instrumental in bringing him from the brink of death in 1634. A pamphlet, which included the print, was circulated in Naples and told the story of how Mastrilli was close to dying from a head injury when he requested that a portrait of Saint Francis be placed by his bedside. As he was taking his last breaths, he heard his name being called from near the portrait; then, Saint Francis appeared to him with a piece of wood from the Cross and placed the relic on his head wound. After his miraculous recovery, Mastrilli recreated the journey of Saint Francis across Asia, retelling this story and distributing prints of the Saint.

San Juan argues that instead of the belief that an embodied Saint appears to those suffering from maladies, such as the plague, and heals them through presence, the image allows them to recognize an interior self, encouraging a “self-conscious consideration of the limits of the physical body in relation to both interiority and intercorporality”. (San Juan p. 120) This also demonstrates judgment regarding consumption. The knowledge of the stories of both Saint Francis and Marcello Mastrilli invokes memories, as Starr would suggest, of the image as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Consequently, the experience of the individual works to reinforce this knowledge and cement an understanding of the physical body with interiority and intercorporality.

Vikan suggests that through this process of replication and copying, the image is no longer considered a work of art. Through mimesis, each imitation was recognized as an icon, and none of them could be placed on a qualitative hierarchy to place authoritative value on one over another (Vikan p. 51). His expressed “Byzantine ‘model-copy’ relationship” establishes a genealogical relationship of the images, which can be compared to Mastrilli’s journey and reflects how changing the image does not disqualify it from being considered an icon.

Bynum reinforces the idea of the consumption of the eucharist as a method to embody Christ and perform miracles through inner reflection and intercorporality. In receiving the eucharist, both in vision and communion, they felt ecstasy and became one with the body on the cross. By consuming Christ, they received his wounds and offered up their own suffering for others' salvation. By denying ordinary food, they were able to send it to those who needed it. And by becoming a source of food, they used their own bodies to nourish and heal. Many of the holy women discussed in Bynum’s article were said to have been able to perform healing miracles with their bodily fluids (Bynum p.136). These women were not evoking the presence of a saint or Christ himself; rather, they used their own, individual embodiment of Christ through the consumption of the eucharist to activate an internal, intercorporeal experience.

How is the experience with this image ruled by an understanding of temporality that is drawn from the oral and written stories of Marcello Mastrilli? How would the emphasis on “interiority” in the interaction between image and viewer fluctuate as the audience loses the intentionality and prior knowledge needed to activate the experience? If the purpose of these devotional objects was to initiate the expelling of a malady from the body, “consume” it, and then be discarded by the viewer, could it be said that these prints contain a temporal quality that also works to subvert the idea of a saintly, virtuous smell?