ABSTRACT
In the sixteenth century, chapels of the Holy Sacrament became ubiquitous throughout the Italian peninsula as Catholics, responding to pressure from Protestant critics, asserted the efficacy of visual engagement with the consecrated host. The present chapter investigates the diverse functions of the chapel of the confraternity of Corpus Christi in the church of San Giorgio al Palazzo in Milan, which was decorated with a cycle of the “mysteries of the Passion” by Bernardino Luini in 1516. More than a site for the reservation of the host and its consumption in the Eucharist, the confraternal chapel was a locus of frequent engagement with the body of Christ outside of the Mass. This chapter examines the ways in which the imagery and inscriptions in Luini’s paintings took up the affective strategies of popular meditational texts to activate devotion in the chapel. Also considered is how this decorative program reciprocally animated paraliturgical ceremonies performed there, such as the burial of the Easter sepulcher. Through an examination of the chapel space in relation to these understudied paintings, we can better understand how the ritual behavior of the confratelli was framed and shaped by their physical environment.
