Aspects of authority and power illustrated by the Portuguese canonization celebrations of Ignatius of Loyola and of Francis Javier Cristina Osswald Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Abstract

The canonization of the founder of a Catholic religious order constitutes a milestone in the affirmation of authority by that order. As concerns to the Society of Jesus, it was a double canonization. Such an uncommon fact as this, clearly both demonstrates the power the Society had at the time at the Curia, and explains its intention of celebrating the auto-glorification. Its scenography, thus, aimed more to praise the triumph of the Society of Jesus through the use of allegorical figures such as Religion, Fame, Honour or Pomp, than anything else. The iconography of such festivities framed the first Jesuits saints within the history of the Society. Thus, the Portuguese jesuits paid homage, by means of the staging, to the beatified ones, the first jesuits and the martyrs. Moreover, the set pointed out its main devotions, characteristics and activities such as missionary work and teaching activities. Often canonizations of a certain figure were intimately related to political power in Early Modern Time. Therefore, Portuguese Jesuit festivities exalted, with a great vigour, feelings of nationalism during the Iberian Union’s time. In order to transmit the various aims, the organizers did not hesitate to use all Baroque celebrative resources (poetry, theatre, dance, music and visual arts). In other words, particularly luxurious and grandiose celebrations, including light, sound, colour, and odour spectacles or events (reference be made to the vases with perfume inside the churches) took place by that time.