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This collection of essays explores how early modern authors, artists, and thinkers engaged with religious practices across cultures through ceremonial performance and visual representation. Using Bernard and Picart’s monumental Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1723–1737) as its focal point, the chapters examine how rituals were observed, described, and imagined as vital expressions of belief and identity. Drawing on art history, religious studies, and performance studies, contributors reveal how these depictions both reflected cultural difference and anticipated later anthropological inquiry. The volume situates these insights within broader historical and intellectual contexts, highlighting performance and proto-anthropology as central to understanding religion in the early modern world.
Contributors include: Steff Nellis, Pascale Rihouet, Paola von Wyss-Giacosa, Matthieu Somon, Daniel Purdy, Nicolás Kwiatkowski, Ianka Huygen, Andreas Kwanten, Fleur Syryn, Marthe Theunissen, Jules De Bruycker, and Alexander McCargar.
Contributors include: Steff Nellis, Pascale Rihouet, Paola von Wyss-Giacosa, Matthieu Somon, Daniel Purdy, Nicolás Kwiatkowski, Ianka Huygen, Andreas Kwanten, Fleur Syryn, Marthe Theunissen, Jules De Bruycker, and Alexander McCargar.
Price: $139.00
Pages: 290
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Intersections
Publication Date:
12 August 2026
ISBN: 9789004764019
Format: Hardcover
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
Notes on the Editions
1 Theatricality and Performativity in Bernard and Picart’s Religious Ceremonies of the World: an Introduction
Steff Nellis
2 Aspects of Theatricality in Bernard and Picart’s Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde (1723–1737)
Steff Nellis
3 Subverting Papal Triumph: Bernard Picart’s Appropriation of G.B. Falda’s Cavalcata
Pascale Rihouet
4 Staging Religion(s) in the Early Enlightenment: Bernard Picart’s Frontispiece for Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde
Paola von Wyss-Giacosa
5 Two Pioneers in the Comparative Iconography of Religions: Alessandro Magnasco and Bernard Picart
Matthieu Somon
6 Idol Curiosity: the Visual Challenge to Jesuit Accommodation
Daniel Purdy
7 From the Son of Adam and Eve to an All-Devouring Deity: Ganesha in Early Modern European Culture
Nicolás Kwiatkowski
8 Clerical Mischief: Bernard and Picart’s Stance on Spiritual Leaders as Intermediary Figures of Theatricality in Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde (1723–1737)
Steff Nellis, Ianka Huygen, Andreas Kwanten, Fleur Syryn, Marthe Theunissen, and Jules De Bruycker
9 A Fascinating Foe: the Ottoman in the Work of Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini
Alexander McCargar
Index Nominum
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
Notes on the Editions
1 Theatricality and Performativity in Bernard and Picart’s Religious Ceremonies of the World: an Introduction
Steff Nellis
2 Aspects of Theatricality in Bernard and Picart’s Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde (1723–1737)
Steff Nellis
3 Subverting Papal Triumph: Bernard Picart’s Appropriation of G.B. Falda’s Cavalcata
Pascale Rihouet
4 Staging Religion(s) in the Early Enlightenment: Bernard Picart’s Frontispiece for Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde
Paola von Wyss-Giacosa
5 Two Pioneers in the Comparative Iconography of Religions: Alessandro Magnasco and Bernard Picart
Matthieu Somon
6 Idol Curiosity: the Visual Challenge to Jesuit Accommodation
Daniel Purdy
7 From the Son of Adam and Eve to an All-Devouring Deity: Ganesha in Early Modern European Culture
Nicolás Kwiatkowski
8 Clerical Mischief: Bernard and Picart’s Stance on Spiritual Leaders as Intermediary Figures of Theatricality in Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde (1723–1737)
Steff Nellis, Ianka Huygen, Andreas Kwanten, Fleur Syryn, Marthe Theunissen, and Jules De Bruycker
9 A Fascinating Foe: the Ottoman in the Work of Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini
Alexander McCargar
Index Nominum
Steff Nellis is an art and theater historian and doctoral researcher specializing in early modern print culture, theatricality, and religious representation. His dissertation examines Bernard Picart’s Cérémonies, exploring how visual and textual strategies shaped European perceptions of global religions.
Stijn Bussels is Professor of Art History and Academic Director of the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). His research focuses on early modern art, theatre, and visual culture in the Low Countries.
Bram Van Oostsveldt is Associate Professor at the Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies at Ghent University. Together with Caroline van Eck, he is currently involved in a project around Camouflage and Art.
Stijn Bussels is Professor of Art History and Academic Director of the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). His research focuses on early modern art, theatre, and visual culture in the Low Countries.
Bram Van Oostsveldt is Associate Professor at the Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies at Ghent University. Together with Caroline van Eck, he is currently involved in a project around Camouflage and Art.