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ESPACIO,
TIEMPO
Y FORMA
SERIE VII HISTORIA DEL ARTE
REVISTA DE LA FACULTAD DE GEOGRAFÍA E HISTORIA
AÑO 2018
NUEVA ÉPOCA
ISSN -
E-ISSN -
6
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA
6
ESPACIO,
TIEMPO
Y FORMA
AÑO 2018
NUEVA ÉPOCA
ISSN -
E-ISSN -
SERIE VII HISTORIA DEL ARTE
REVISTA DE LA FACULTAD DE GEOGRAFÍA E HISTORIA
: http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/etfvii.6.2018
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.º 2 — Historia del Arte
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.º 4 — Historia Moderna
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119, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN
EARLY MODERN ITALY
TATUAJES DEVOCIONALES EN
LA ITALIA DE LA EDAD MODERNA
Guido Guerzoni1
Recibido: 19/10/2018 · Aceptado: 30/10/2018
: http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/etfvii.2018.22948
Abstract
This essay seeks to analyze the production and dissemination of devotional tattoos
in Early Modern times, focusing on the Italian case. It explores the details of their
functions and meanings, and their intellectual reception. Nineteenth century
theories stated that tattoos appeared in Europe only after the travels of Cook
and Bouganville to savage Polynesia. There are many reasons to state that tattoos
never disappeared in Italy, though. In the Roman Empire tattoo was considered
«an indelible mark of infamy», while «tattooing of the whole body», was known
as the «barbarian» custom. Between the fourth and the fifth century, the world of
Christianity witnessed a progressive subversion of meanings originally approved for
that practice of tattoo, by externalizing the signs of pain, transforming the figure
of infamy in the patent expression of faith. Despite ambiguous attitude of Catholic
authorities towards tattooing, this practice was a public ritual and this publicity
was continually reiterated, revealing a social belonging.
Keywords
Devotional tattoos; Early Modern times; Italy; public ritual.
Resumen
Este ensayo pretende analizar la producción y difusión de los tatuajes devocionales
en la Edad Moderna, con especial atención a Italia. Explora los detalles sobre sus
funciones y significados, así como su recepción intelectual. Las teorías decimonó-
nicas situaban la aparición de los tatuajes en Europa en un contexto posterior a
los viajes de Cook y Bouganville a la Polinesia salvaje. Sin embargo, hay muchos
motivos para creer que los tatuajes nunca desaparecieron de Italia. En tiempos del
imperio romano el tatuaje fue considerado una «señal de infamia» y tatuarse el
cuerpo, una práctica «bárbara». Entre los siglos IV y V, el cristianismo fue testi-
go de una progresiva transformación de los significados originalmente atribuidos
1. Bocconi University. Email: guido.guerzoni@unibocconi.it
, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478 120
GUIDO GUERZONI
a los tatuajes: se vivió un proceso de externalización de las señales del dolor y de
transformación de la original infamia en una expresión de fe. Pese a las actitudes
ambiguas que siempre mostraron las autoridades católicas hacia el tatuaje, esta
práctica se convirtió en una ritual público y su visibilidad fue perpetuada, revelan-
do un sentido identitario de pertenencia a un grupo.
Palabras clave:
Tatuajes devocionales; Edad Moderna; Italia; ritual público.
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
121, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
I WOULD LIKE to make a few considerations on the production and dissemi-
nation of devotional tattoos in Early Modern times, and their intellectual recep-
tion, focusing on the Italian case, in which the presence of tattoos is documented
since – at least – 3.400-3.100 BC, the period in which flourished Ötzi, the iceman
mummy of Similaun, found in September 1991, with 53 tattoos adorning his body.
It is not a brand-new issue, having been analysed in the past.2 Nevertheless I rec-
kon it is worthy to raise the question, both to confront with the vast number of
studies that in the last few years addressed these issues, and to delve on the details
of functions and meanings relevant to the religious practice.
Finalizing the essay I tatuaggi sacri e profani della Santa Casa di Loreto (sacred
and profane tattoos in the Holy House of Loreto) published in 1889, ethnologist
Caterina Pigorini Beri described a:
peculiar tradition encountered in almost every population of ancient Piceno, between
the sea and the Tronto, Umbria and Abruzzi. This smart, kind and straightforward po-
pulation in which apparently the Umbrian and Etrurian civilization mixed up, traditio-
nally used tattoos: men in particular. And it is easy to notice because the tattoos are
generally on their arms, close to the wrists.
The observer is always surprised seeing the peasants in the fields, with their sleeves
rolled up, showing these symbolic signs in a turquoise shade of blue: a silhouette, a
motto, a cross and the symbols of passion, with the sun and the moon, or the Holy
Spirit and one or two pierced hearts, sometimes under a cross lodged in a globe or in
a star; then the eternal, indelible forget-me-not as the song goes.
The tattoo is so natural and common that nobody talks about it. In fact, to my knowl-
edge, nobody in the villages ever mentioned this strange tradition, peculiar to that
region, that necessarily has a primary ethnographic and historical relevance.3
The same observation was made few years before, by the abbot Stoppani, who
described this barbarian practise in his book published in 1881. He noticed in Loreto
strange thugs, who were «jumping and beating like castanets some tablets of wood»
2. See for instance S, Ronald G, Christopher: Skin Deep: The Mysteries of Tattooing. London, Peter
Davies, 1974; M, Jean-Thierry: Le dessein sur la peau. Essai d’anthropologie des inscriptions tégumentaires. Paris,
Aubier Montagne, 1978; O, Stephan: Zeichen auf der Haut. Die Geschichte der Tätowierung in Europa.
Frankfurt am Main, Syndikat, 1979; A, Didier: Le moi-peau. Paris, Dunod, 1985; F, Armando R.: Bodies
Under Siege: Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1987; R, Arnold (ed.): Marks of Civilisation. Artistic Transformations of the Human Body. Museum of
Cultural History, Los Angeles, 1988; S, Clinton R. V, D. Angus: Customizing the Body. The Art and Culture
of Tattooing. Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1989; M-L, Frances E. S, Patricia (eds.): Tattoo,
Torture, Mutilation and Adornment. The Denaturalization of the Body in Culture and Text. Albany, State University of
New York Press, 1992; G, Alfred: Wrapping in Images. Tattooing in Polynesia. Oxford, Oxford Studies in Social
Cultural Anthropology, 1993; P, Ted R, Housk: The Customized Body, New York, Serpent’s Tail,
1996; M, Margot: Bodies of subversion. A secret History of Women and Tattoo. Juno Books, New York, 1997;
F, Juliet: «The Renaissance Tattoo», RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 31 (Spring, 1997), pp. 34-52; C,
Jane (ed.): Written on the Body. The Tattoo in European and American History. Princeton, Princeton University Press,
2000; G, Steve G.: Tattoo History. A Source Book, New York, Juno Publishing, 2001.
3. P B, Caterina: Costumi e superstizioni dell’Appennino Marchigiano. Città di Castello, S. Lapi, 1889,
p. 291.
, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478 122
GUIDO GUERZONI
inviting «people to do something that I did not understand immediately...».
4
He was
dumbfounded when he saw «a girl come forward, fresh-faced, innocent-looking
and smiling». She chose a holy sign and then «left the arm at that jerk. That vile
man began to spread with a black paint the salient features of the incision. Then he
applied the tablet on that poor arm and he pressed it in such a way that it remained
printed in black. Then began the shameful carnage. He wielded a stiletto made
in steel and with his hand animated by an almost convulsive shudder, he began
to tease, injure blood to the poor victim. He passed and repassed on the lines of
engraving, until all that filth was absorbed».5
I found some tablets engraved in the sixteenth century at Loreto (Figures 1-29)
and they can be grouped into six main categories: I) Tattoos related to Order of
Saint Francis (Franciscans were the first keepers of the Loreto sanctuary); II) Tattoos
associated to the Company of Jesus; III) Tattoos related to both previous orders; IV)
Various religious tattoos; V) Love tattoos; VI) Miscellaneous, with tattoos of young
spouses (doves, according to the say «and the verb turned into flesh and inhabited
us»), and widowers’ with skull and crossed shinbones and the motto memento mori
tattooed below.
However, the statement made by Pigorini Beri was not completely true. Cesare
Lombroso, the famous/infamous founder of Italian criminal anthropology, who
collected an astonishing bulk of drawings and photographs, focused on tattoos
(Figure 30) and had already observed in 1878 the habit of devotional tattoos, there
and elsewhere. He revealed that in Lombardy, near the Sanctuary of Caravaggio,
shepherds preferred the «cross superimposed to a globe or a heart and surrounded by
candles»; the image of the Blessed Sacrament was appreciated especially by people of
Naples, together with crucifixes, patron saints, and the portraits of the dead,
6
while
on the arms of the people from Romagna it was common to see christograms in the
shape of a capital H,7 similar to those described by Giuseppe Pitré in Sicily, some
decades earlier.8 This geographical distribution was confirmed by a rich national
lexicography: retratto (portrait), marco (mark), signo (sign), devozione (devotion),
marconzito and ’nzito.
These sources invite us to reconsider mainstream nineteenth century theories
and scholars, which stated that tattoos appeared in Europe only after the travels
of Cook and Bouganville to savage Polynesia. The historical practice of devotional
tattooing in Italy was a comprehensible matter of embarrassment, since it questioned
unfaltering tenets of the anthropological school of positivist matrix, which stressed,
not only in Italy, the atavistic, deviant, and «extra-European» features of tattoos.
These theories, lacking serious historical foundation, saw in the «sign of Cain» the
trait d’union underlining the association between the savages described by coeval
4. S, Antonio: Il bel paese, Milano, Giacomo Agnelli, 1881, p. 164.
5. Ibidem, p. 164.
6. L, Cesare: Uomo Delinquente in Rapporto all’Antropologia, Giurisprudenza e alle Discipline Carcerarie.
Delinquente-Nato e Pazzo Morale. Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1884, pp. 300-1.
7. P B, Caterina: op. cit., p. 303.
8. P, Giuseppe: Usi e costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano raccolti e descritti da Giuseppe Pitrè.
Palermo, il Vespro, 1870-1913, vol. I, p. 465.
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
123, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
1-15. , , , : 1-4 , 5 ,
6-7 , 8-9 , 10 , 11 , 12-13 . , 14-15 .
1 2 3 4 5
67 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478 124
GUIDO GUERZONI
16-29. , , ,
: 16-17 ’ , 18 , 19 , 20 .
, 21-22 . , 23 , 24 . , 25 , 26-28
, 29 .
16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
125, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
explorers, geographers and anthropologists, and the urban cavemen, responsible or
potentially responsible for the most heinous crimes against human society.
To understand the embarrassment of that time, however, we have to go back
to the devotional function, and the genuinely popular practice of a very ancient
tradition, which questions those lingering historical assumptions. In the traditional
classification of tattoos made by Lombroso and De Blasio (tattoo of love, of
nickname, of revenge, of graduation, of contempt, of profession, of beauty, of age,
ethnic, obscene, hereditary, symbolic, psychic, religious), the causes that kept this
custom would have been the imitation, the idleness, the spirit of the sect, the erotic
passions, the atavism and, finally, the religion.9 Hence the diculties encountered
9. See B, Francesco: «Il tatuaggio in Sicilia in rapporto alla resistenza psichica», Archivio di Etnografia e
Antropologia, 22 (1891), pp. 205-230; C, Luigi, G.: Chiromanzia e tatuaggio. Note di varietà, ricerche storiche e
scientifiche coll’appendice di un’inchiesta con risposte di Ferrero, Lombroso, Mantegazza, Morselli ed altri. Milano, Ulrico
Hoepli, 1903; A, Orazio: Il tatuaggio nelle prostitute. Studio psico antropologico. Genova, Stab. tip. del
Commercio, 1888; B, Abele: Il tatuaggio dei camorristi e delle prostitute di Napoli. Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1894;
idem: Il tatuaggio ereditario e psichico dei camorristi napoletani. Napoli, Tocco, 1898; idem: Ulteriori ricerche intorno
al tatuaggio dei camorristi napoletani. Napoli, ivi, Camilla e Bertolero, 1902; idem: Il tatuaggio. Napoli, Priore, 1905;
idem: Tatuaggi anarchici in delinquenti monarchici. Napoli, Luigi Piero, 1906; idem: «Tatuaggi di delinquenti precoci»,
L’Anomalo (1914), pp. 2-12; idem: Tatuaggi artistici in disertori francesi. Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1911; E, Donato C.:
L’espressione del tatuaggio. Appunti critici d’antropologia criminale. Milano, Corriere sam bisemtin, 1897; F, G.B.:
Tatuaggio politico in un delinquente d’occasione, Siena 1915; G, Rafaele: Il tatuaggio nella antropologia e nella
30. , ,
, , .
, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478 126
GUIDO GUERZONI
in trying to bring to order, according to likely paths, such complex phenomenon:
beyond the hypocritical wonder for the blatant infraction of the biblical precepts
that banished every form of self-mutilation and permanent modification of the
body, considered the masterpiece of God, some reservations were tactically made
about the lawfulness of such a privately idolatrous relationship. I would dare to
say, in front of some tattoo artists, customized.
In the case of Loreto, in fact, both the very wide range of patterns (more than four
hundred have survived) (Figure 31) and their paradoxical modernity (i.e. the success of
the images such as Santa Filomena, canonized in 1833, or the Immaculate Conception,
whose dogma was declared only in 1854), which make me not obliterate entirely the
possibility that even free tattoos were performed, aside the choice of tabellar motifs.
As indeed observed Pigorini Beri: «no other sanctuary has so many tattoos (even if
there are other shrines that have such strange custom) as that of Loreto: and, a fact
worthy of the highest attention is this: the sacred tattoo of Loreto, without speaking
for now of the amorous that is a direct consequence of it, it has a singular variety of
types and symbolic figures»10.
medicina legale. Bologna, Zanichelli, 1912; L, Cesare: Il tatuaggio. Torino, 1866; idem: «Sul tatuaggio in
Italia in specie fra i delinquenti», Rivista Carceraria, 17 (1875), pp. 113-26; idem: L’uomo delinquente. Milano, Hoepli,
1876; M, Emanuele: Il tatuaggio dei domiciliati coatti in Favignana, con prefazione del Prof. Cesare Lombroso.
Roma, Tipografia Editrice Romana, 1903; M D C, Luigi: Il tatuaggio. Napoli, G. M. Priore, 1905;
O, Salvatore: Il tatuaggio nei minorenni corrigendi. Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1898; P, Carlo: Il
tatuaggio e sua importanza antropologica e medico-legale. Roma, Tip. Mariani, 1891.
10. P B, Caterina: op. cit.
31. , ,
, .
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
127, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
We can therefore imagine the bewilderment of several nineteenth century au-
thors, who unwillingly penned masterpieces of humour, such as Artistic tattoos of
French deserters, The psychic and hereditary tattoos of Naples’ camorristi, Anarchic
tattoos in monarchic criminals, Political tattoos in an occasional criminal, or Tattoos
and the somatic aesthetics of negroes. Proud of putting in the preface of their trea-
tises the canonical quote of Théophile Gautier: «The brute feels that the ornament
traces an indelible border between him and the beast, and when he cannot embroi-
der his clothes, he decorates his own skin», they welcomed these discoveries with
comprehensible embarrassment.
The first obstacle was represented by the epithelial taboo, by the intolerant
embarrassment, a skin feeling one could say, for this painful use of the integument
that forced to overcome the Manichean concept of «social skin», aptly described by
Terence Turner: «The surface of the body becomes, in any human society, a boundary
of a peculiarly complex kind, which simultaneously separates domains lying on either
side of it and conflates different levels of social, individual, and intra-psychic meaning.
The skin (and hair) are the concrete boundary between the self and the other, the
individual and society».11
In the limbs of male and female devotees, the shame of permanent deforma-
tion added up to the publicity of the act and the fact, since tattooing was a public
ritual and the tattoos were intentionally done in visible parts of the body. But this
publicity was continually reiterated, revealing a social belonging, so privately iden-
titarian even before confessional, which turns intolerable for bourgeois clichés in
terms of body visibility and aesthetics of nudity. The devotional tattoo, although
it expressed noble sentiments, being the non-metaphorical incarnation of an un-
shakable faith, shattered several taboos in one shot: the peasants, in fact, did not
get tattooed in the pudent and shameful parts, like the mafiosi, the camorristi, the
pederasts, and the prostitutes. On the contrary, they preferred cutaneous garments
exposed to sunlight, sort of personal sanctuaries prêt-à-porter, ready to welcome
the breath of the air and the look of the peers.
According to the classical literary sources, many ancient people were tattooed:
the Assyrians described by Luciano, the Dacians and the Sarmatians who according
to Pliny «corpora sua inscribunt», the Thracians observed by Herodotus, so full of
ink that they originated the expression Thracianotae, but not the Christians, nor,
much less, the devoted servants of the Holy Roman Church. In fact, whether it
was Arii, Agatirsi, Britanni, Cananei, Geloni, Libi, Nubiani, Pitti or Scizi, the tattoo
denounced, without words, the barbarian nature of its bearers. Hence the die-hard
belief that in Italy, these primitive forms of bodily modification had disappeared
since antiquity, together with the extinction of the mores of the ancient barbarian
populations.
This is curious because the Latin word for tattoo (which is a Polinesian lemma
first appeared in English in Captain Cook’s Voyages in 1770), namely nota (note,
11. T, Terence: «The social skin: interface ith the world», in C, Jeremy L, Roger: Not Works
alone: a cross-cultural view of activities superfluous to survival. London, Temple Smith, 1980, p. 139.
, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478 128
GUIDO GUERZONI
writing), derives from the substitution of the greek stizein (stinging, itching, root of
which was derived from stigma, ta stigmata, stigmàta) with the verb inscribo, which
has the same ethimology of scribbles. Stigmàta were presumably tattoos, and at the
early beginning of Christian culture and literacy we found these writings in the flesh,
these biographies: the tattoo was first writing, the expression of a completed thought,
narration, vote, speech, epic, history.
In this regard I believe that it would be wrong to assume that the tradition of
tattooing, not only religious symbols, was a recent novelty in Loreto, and broadly
speaking, Italy. It was an ancient practice, carried out at least since the fifteenth
century, but probably never interrupted from Roman times. Let’s consider for in-
stance the description provided in the codex Urbinate Latino 1217, preserved in the
Vatican Library and entitled Thesaei Pines, Urbinatis speculum de cerretanis, which
according to the authoritative opinion of Pietro Camporesi was written between
1484 and 1486. The author described a peculiar habit of the Pauliani, a bizarre Chris-
tian sect whose members, thanks to the intercession of Saint Paul, were insensitive
to snake poison, living with them and bearing a snake tattoed on their shoulders.
The description provided by Teseo Pini is fairly impressive: in Rome «they draw
first on the arm or shoulder a serpent. Then with the tip of a very thin needle they
make small bites over the figure. After they rub them with soot or coal dust or with
the juice of certain herbs. The flesh absorbs through the bites that color and remains
perpetually the sign, and so Paulani lead and show the blue/black spots in the shape
of a snake on the white skin». Few years later the Provisione elemosinaria per li poveri
di qualunque sorte della città di Bologna, published in the same city in 1548, when
speaking of beggars, stigmatized those who «dye and dot (maculano) their flesh by
exhibiting misfortunes of their country, fire, war or other ruins». The same kind of
tattooed beggars, in Rome, were known as «istoriati», (where «istoriare» means to
decorate with historical or legendary scenes), indirectly recognizing with this title
the narrative dimension of the stories written of their bodies.
But tattooing in Early Modern Italy was not only a deviant practice. The Neapol-
itan abbot Diego Bernardo de Mendoza, who died in 1650, revealed a Marian tattoo
on his chest, associated to a devotional practice known as «Slavery of Mary».12 Its
motives were similar to those described by the French traveller Jean de Thévenot,
who in the spring of 1658 visited the holy sites of Palestine. On the 29th of April,
a Monday, he spent all day with his travelling companions «to have our arms tat-
tooed, like all Pilgrims who are Christians of Bethlehem following the Latin rite
which is practiced...».13 Were the Pilgrims and the Crusaders coming back from
the East responsible of importing this exotic practice in the Italian land, flaunting
like a trophy their turquoise arms? Or this tradition was common in many other
areas, not only in Italy, and we just ignored its existence?
12. C, Cleto, et al.: «Il tatuaggio religioso in Loreto», Ravennatensia, 6 (1977), pp. 381-96, quoted at
pp. 388-89.
13. In P, Paul: «La miraculeuse histoire de Pandare et d’Echédore, suivie de recherches sur la marque
dans l’Antiquité», Archiv für Religionwissenschaft, 14 (1911), pp. 54-129, quoted at p. 113.
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
129, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
The sources I quoted raise many historical questions. Among the many, I will
pick up two of them. The first is represented by the ambiguous attitude of Catholic
authorities towards tattooing, criticized in chapter XIX, v. 28 of Leviticus («You shall
not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you»),
condemned by the Nicaea Council of 325, and abhorred by the Church Fathers. This
practice could be explained by remembering that in the Roman Empire
14
tattoo
was considered «an indelible mark of infamy», while «tattooing of the whole
body», was known as the «barbarian» custom: for them, tattooing was always
utilitarian, and usually a sign of degradation.15 In the Latin world, it was used to
punish fugitive slaves, prisoners of war or criminals with defamatory, punitive or
preventive functions (for Juvenal and Apuleius the condemned in ergastula were
inscripti or litterati).
16
Many were damnati ad metalla (condemned to the mines),
condemned to gladiatorial schools,
17
the probosae personae (mimes, teachers,
technitai Dionysiou, gladiators, prostitutes, lenons and ruans),18 to close with
the freshmen (fabricienses) of the arsenals. The only exceptions were the tattoos of
the soldiers, who engraved on the right arm the name of the emperor and the date
of their engagement, although even in this case some degree of coercion is visible,
as such signs made desertions much more dicult and risky.
In most cases, therefore, the tattoo was considered to be: «an indelible mark of
infamy which adds insult to injury, and makes the punishment permanent, should
(under unforeseen circumstances) the other punitive situation prove temporary».
19
Sometimes the name of the crime was inscribed (K for Calumnia, F or FGV for
Fugitivus), in other cases the offended authority, in others still the penalty to be
served: almost all the Christians condemned to the forced labor in the mines were
tattooed on their forehead with the sentence Ad Metalla.
14. See B, Virginia: «Macrina’s Tattoo», Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 33 (2003), pp. 403-17;
C, Kathleen M.: «Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments», The Journal of
Roman Studies, 80 (1990), pp. 44-73; D, Franz J.: Sphragis: eine altchristliche Tauezeichnung in ihren Beziehungen
zur profanen und religiösen Kultur des Altertums. Paderborn, Schöningh, 1911; idem: «Religiöser oder profaner Charakter
der Stammestätowierung?», Antike und Christentum, III, 3 (1932), pp. 204-9; idem: «Beiträge zur Geschichte des
Kreuzzeichens», Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, 1 (1958), pp. 5-19; E, Susanna: «Sklave Gottes - Stigmata,
Bischöfe und anti-häretische Propaganda im vierten Jahrhundert», Historische Anthropologie, 7, 3 (1999), pp. 345-63;
idem: «Marking the Self in Late Antiquity. Inscriptions, Baptism and the Conversion of Mimes», in M, Bettine
V, Barbara (eds.): Stigmata. Poetiken der Körperinschrift. Paderborn, Wilhem Fink Verlag, 2004, pp. 47-68;
G, Mark: «Comdemnation to the Mines in the Later Roman Empire», Harvard Theological Review, 87 (1994),
pp. 421-33; idem: «Inscripta in fronte: Penal Tattooing in Late Antiquity», Classical Antiquity, 16 (1997), pp. 79-105;
idem: «The Tattoo in Later Roman Empire and Beyond», in C, Jane (ed.): Written on the body: the tattoo in
European and American History. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 16-31; J, Christopher P.: «Stigma:
Tattooing and Branding in Greco-Roman Antiquity», Journal of Roman Studies, 72 (1987), pp. 139-55; idem: «Stigma
and Tattoo», in C, Jane (ed.): Written on the body: the tattoo in European and American History. Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 1- 15; S, Walther: Körperbemalen, Brandmarken, Tätowieren. Nach
griechischen, römischen Schriftstellern, Dichtern, neuzeitlichen Veröffentlichungen und eigenen Erfahrungen, vorzüglich in
Europa. Heidelberg, Huthig, 1960; Z, Konrad: «Tätowierte Thrakerinnen auf griechischen Vasenbildern»,
Jahrbuch des Deutschen archäologischen Instituts, 95 (1980), pp. 163-96.
15. J, Christopher P.: «Stigma: Tattooing and Branding... », p. 143.
16. J, Christopher P.: «Stigma: Tattooing and Branding... », pp. 149-50 and 153.
17. G, Mark: «Inscripta in fronte...», p. 83.
18. E, Susanna: «Marking the Self... », p. 58.
19. G, Mark: «Inscripta in fronte... », pp. 89-90.
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In light of this evidence, we can understand the virtuous association between
slavery, stigmàta and martyrdom: many Christians were proud to bear witnesses
to their faith, their «being slaves of Christ». When saint Paul in his Letter to the Ga-
latians (6,17) claimed to have: «the stigmàta of Jesus» on his body, he immediately
qualified himself as his slave, ensuring the eternal luck of the term, used to identify
bodily signs that for self-laceration or mystical transmission advertise the intima-
te participation of the stigmatized to the sufferings of Jesus Christ. In this sense, as
Susanne Elm pointedly noted: «as long as occurs voluntarily, such markings can be
read as representing supreme disregard of even the highest authority manifested in
the immaculate body, and thus as projecting an authority that transcends such power
and become unassailable».20
However, the positions held by the leaders of the Church were ambiguous. On
the one hand they ocially deprecated these forms of devotion, disputing the idol-
atrous tendencies that made them almost indistinguishable from those prevalent
among the heretical and heterodox movements, with whom they were in open, and
sometimes bloody, conflict. On the other hand, the hierarchies were forced, in hos-
tile environments, to permit the nobility of purpose, not being able to defer the risks
run by those who bravely showed the distinguished marks of their faith, nor being
able to ignore the presence of obligations rather explicit. Thus, between the fourth
and the fifth century, the world of Christianity witnessed a progressive and signifi-
cant subversion of meanings originally approved for that practice. This subversion,
by externalizing the signs of pain, transformed the figure of infamy in the patent ex-
pression of faith, a symbol of martyrdom.
Not by chance in mid-sixth century Procopius of Gaza found that many Christians
had tattoos on their shoulders or arms with the name and symbols of Christ, the
beloved figures (ΙΧΘΥΣ , Greek acronym for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Savior), INRI,
A and Ω, the emblems of the fish, dolphin, lamb or anchor, christograms and symbols
of the cross. They were bold letters of everlasting devotion, lively and pulsating holy
scriptures, inscribed on the arms and the hands of those who carried an eternal
declaration of love and obedience. They would be forever inscribed on their flesh, till
death, a proof of their faith proudly flaunted in front of infidels and non-believers.
For this reason, I am strongly convinced that tattoos never disappeared in Italy.
They crossed unscathed the centuries that separated the decline of the Roman Em-
pire from the publication of manuals for confessors. For example, amongst the De-
cisiones prudentiales casuum et quaesitorum conscientia of Reverend Father Prospero
Domenico Maroni, from Cagli, published in Forlì in 1702, it is mentioned, as thirty
seventh case, the interesting example of «women that during the celebration of Saint
John Baptist trace crosses or other signs on the body of men or women, punctur-
ing the flesh with pins so that they could better absorb the ink that is poured on the
wounds after bleeding...».21
20. E, Susanna: «Pierced by Bronze Needles: Anti-Montanist Charges of Ritual Stigmatization in Their Fourth-
Century Context», Journal of Early Christian Studies, 4 (1996), pp. 409-39, quoted at pp. 414-5.
21. In C, Giovanni: Superstizioni e pregiudizi nelle Marche durante il Seicento. Bologna, Cappelli, 1947, p. 75.
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
131, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
Bleeding reminds the relevance of the devotional rituals, which must be taken into
account. Those are less tied to earthly permanence of the outcome, the trademark
blue or blackish – mute albeit talking witness of a feeling that did not fear death
and pain – but rather to the ephemeral performative mode that accompanied the
execution of devotional tattooing. All descriptions gathered underline that the rite of
tattooing was celebrated coram populo, according to the canons of a public martyrdom,
though no doubt individual: as anyone that had a tattoo knows, during the operation
the limb, stimulated by the instrument of the tattooist, «spews blood». From this
perspective, similarly to what occurred in other extreme devotional practices, from
self-flagellation to stripping the flesh off knees or feet soles, these cutaneous icons
replicated, in public but bearable forms, the technical modalities of crucifixion.
Pilgrims used to have the forearm tattooed, near or onto the hand, as if they
wanted to imitate Saint Francis’ stigmàta, a practice confirmed by the shapes and
dimensions of the matrixes that have been preserved. Though slightly differing,
from a minimum of two by four centimetres (find 887, Heart of Jesus pierced by
a sword Cuore di Gesù trafitto da una spada) to a maximum of five by eight (find
848, Crucifix Crocifisso), they generally developed in length, proving the usage of
having the hollow or more frequently the back of the forearm tattooed. This habit
confirms the ostensory function of the multitude of signes inflicted, which were
sheer insigna Cristi, and not by chance the nail of the tattooist in fact insisted on
32. . , , . 1820, , 78
103 , . , , ,
’, . ., . .
, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478 132
GUIDO GUERZONI
wrists of Italian martyrs, leaving forever impressed the stigmàta of their suffering
(pain can be quite intense, especially near those points which are replete of nerve
endings, such as, precisely, wrists).22
To this pain, the metaphorical one often added up, since a remarkable number of
issues evokes quite explicitly gory piercings. The versions of the Madonnas of Seven
Pains (covered in blades and stabbed in various fashions), or the sacred hearts of Jesus
pierced with rapiers and daggers, underline the evocative power of this votive means,
since the pain of the incision guaranteed the atonement of sins and the perennial
remembering of the suffering of object and subject in the act of devotion.
What remains open is the big question: why don’t we have painting or other visual
reproduction of tattoos? Was it simply tolerated but ocially criticized, suggesting the
painters not to reproduce this popular, a little bit pagan, costume? (Figure 32) What is
notorious is that this censorship was as old as ignored by many other believers, and
mostly by those who were more involved, namely the pilgrims: «it is an old custom
for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem to be tattooed there with some religious symbol,
their name, or initials, and the dates of the pilgrimage».
23
Nevertheless, the infraction
of this prohibition was equivalent of blaspheme to any visual artist. And since the art-
ists often left the imperishable trace of their signature on their artworks, it was not
advisable to commit a crime so serious, for which were expected very severe penalties.
22. See on these aspec t s M, Eric A, Tammi: «The Dilemmas of Embodied Symbolic
Representation», The Social Science Journal, 50, 4 (2013), pp. 547-556.
23. See O, Robert: «Permanent Ephemera: The ‘Honourable Stigmatisation’ of Jerusalem Pilgrims»,
in B, Renana V, Hanna (eds.): Between Jerusalem and Europe. Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel. Brill,
Leiden-Boston, 2015, pp. 97-109.
DEVOTIONAL TATTOOS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
133, · . 6 · 2018 · 119–136 1130-4715 · - 2340-1478
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ESPACIO,
TIEMPO
Y FORMA
SERIE VII HISTORIA DEL ARTE
REVISTA DE LA FACULTAD DE GEOGRAFÍA E HISTORIA
AÑO 2018
NUEVA ÉPOCA
ISSN: -
E-ISSN -
6
Dossier by Diane Bodart: Wearing Images? · Imágenes
portadas? por Diane Bodart
15 D B
Wearing Images?. Introduction · Imágenes portadas. Introducción
33 M K
Small Volumes, Concealed Images: Portrait Miniatures and the Body
· Pequeños volúmenes, imágenes ocultas: Las miniaturas retrato y el cuerpo
55 L H
Revêtir l’armoirie. Les vêtements héraldiques au Moyen Âge, mythes
et réalités · Vestir el escudo de armas. Los vestidos heráldicos de la Edad
Media, mitos y realidades
89 F J
Body of Knowledge: Renaissance Armor and the Engineering of Mind
· Cuerpos del conocimiento: armaduras del Renacimiento y la ingeniería de
la mente
119 G G
Devotional tattooes in Early Modern Italy · Tatuajes devocionales en
la Italia de la Edad Moderna
137 K D-R
Prêt-à-porter: Textual Amulets, Popular Belief and Defining Supersti-
tion in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century France · Prêt-à-porter: amuletos
textuales, creencias populares y definición de las supersticiones en la Francia
de los siglos XVI y XVII
169 C B
Wearing the Sacred: Images, Space, Identity in Liturgical Vestments
(13 to 16 Centuries) · Vistiendo lo sagrado. Imágenes, espacio e identidad
de las vestiduras litúrgicas (Siglos XIII al XVI)
197 J M
Les transports du masque. Pratiques et performativité de l’imaginaire
(et) du paraître à la fin du XVIe siècle · Medios del uso de las máscaras. Práctica
y desarrollo de la imaginería y su representación a finales del siglo XVI
Miscelánea · Miscellany
237 A M C
Pervivencia de motivos islámicos en el Renacimiento: El lema «ʼIzz
Li-Mawlānā Al-Sulṭān» en las puertas del retablo mayor de la catedral de Valencia
· Pervivence of Islamic Designs in the Renaissance: Motto «ʼIzz Li-Mawlānā
Al-Sulṭān» at the Doors of the Main Altarpiece of the Cathedral of Valencia
259 R R M
Plateros tardogóticos de Valladolid al servicio de la Casa Ducal de
Medinaceli. A propósito de ciertas joyas para Doña María de Silva y Toledo ·
Late Gothic Master Silversmiths from Valladolid at the Service of the Ducal
House of Medinaceli: Jewels for Doña María de Silva and Toledo
281 R C Q
Las vidrieras de la Catedral de Jaén · Stained Glasses in Jaén Cathedral
301 J I C P
La representación de San Norberto en las estampas flamencas del
siglo XVII · Saint Norbert in some Flemish Engravings of the Seventeenth
Century
331 I Mª R M
Definición, usos e historiografía de la miniatura-retrato · Definition,
Uses and Historiography of Portrait Miniature
349 C T R
El comercio de antigüedades en España a comienzos del siglo XX: el
caso de José Gestoso y Pérez (1852-1917 · The Trading of Antiques in Spain at
the Beginning of the 20 Century: The Case of José Gestoso y Pérez (1852-1917)
367 I S C
Una historia española del aguatinta · A Spanish History of Aquatint
389 R L F
Tradición, modernidad y transgresión en las artes escénicas españolas
durante el franquismo: Víctor Cortezo y la escenografía de La cena del rey Baltasar
(1939-1954) · Tradition, Modernity and Transgression during Francoism: Víctor
Cortezo and the Scenography of La Cena del Rey Baltasar (1939-1945)
413 R G I
El silencio como límite: en torno a la afirmación estética de la me-
moria traumática · Silence as a Limit: Regarding the Aesthetic Armation
of Traumatic Memory
429 D A G
La materia viva: oro, alquimia y sanación en Elena del Rivero y
Joseph Beuys · Live Matter: Gold, Alchemy and Healing in Elena del Rivero
and Joseph Beuys
451 L D. R M
La industria cultural necesita máquinas. La Alhambra: patrimonio,
turismo y producción económica · Cultural Industry Needs Machines. Alhambra:
Heritage, Tourism and Economic Production
ESPACIO,
TIEMPO
Y FORMA
AÑO 2018
NUEVA ÉPOCA
ISSN: -
E-ISSN -
6
Reseñas · Book Review
475 S H B
M, Éric: Las invasiones bárbaras. Una genealogía de la historia
del arte. Traducción de Antonio Oviedo. Buenos Aires, Adriana Hidalgo, 2017 [ed.
Gallimard, 2015].
479 B F L
S, Laura, Giovanni Andrea Doria (1540-1606). Immagini,
commitenze artistiche, rapporti politici e culturali tra Genova e la Spagna. Génova:
Genova University Press, 2018.
483 J A V Z
A C, Cristina dir.), Carreño de Miranda. Dibujos,
Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España y CEEH, 2017.