Eloquent Images: Evangelisation, Conversion and Propaganda in the Global World of the Early Modern Period. Edited by Giuseppe Capriotti, Pierre-Antoine Fabre, and Sabina Pavone. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2022. Pp. 370. $84.

Abstract

Eloquent Images represents an ambitious and self-aware contribution to highly fraught historiographical debates on the use and analysis of images in studies on the early modern period. The book ’ s editors have assembled an exciting and diverse cast of scholars to explore the many ways that images functioned within the complex mosaic of early modern religious practice. The premise laid out in the book ’ s introduction is that the analysis of images, their creation, messages, and use, must also be contextualized within their specific historical contexts. The resulting contributions effectively deploy methodological tactics that are simultaneously fore-grounded in cultural historical approaches and steeped in art historical analysis and contexts.