TY - JOUR TI - Wounded: Healing communal wounds: processions and plague in sixteenth-century Mantua AU -Marie-Louise Leonard PY - 2019 VL - IS - Spring 2019 KW - confraternities KW - health offices KW - Mantua KW - Plague KW - premodern public health KW - processions KW - ritual AB - In 1576 a plague epidemic inflicted physical and psychological wounds on the community of Mantua. This article examines the role of processions in healing those wounds and discusses the programme of processions organised by the city’s health office in conjunction with religious groups including Mantua’s confraternities. Processions were staged at various points during the epidemic for different purposes: to celebrate dates on the religious calendar, such as the feast of Corpus Domini, and to reintegrate those cured at the plague hospital to the city. Participation was not limited to those in the processional body; for instance, people quarantined in their homes could watch the event, hear the prayers, and join in by singing. Therefore, processions provided a link between the sick and the healthy and illustrate the collective experience of illness and healing in early modern society. Furthermore, processions with returning convalescents in Mantua illustrate complex attitudes towards the sick poor and their role in healing the city. N1 - This article is drawn from the author’s PhD thesis, ‘Plague Epidemics and Public Health in Mantua, 1450–1576’, University Glasgow, 2014 N1 - Archivio di Stato di Bologna, Assunteria di Sanità, Bandi Bolognese, carta. 216 N1 - Archivio di stato di Mantova (hereafter ASMn.), Archivio Gonzaga (hereafter A.G.), busta (hereafter b.) 2598, carta (hereafter c.) 14 N1 - ASMn, A.G., b. 2599, 22 June 1576 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 240 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 240 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 245 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2599, 22 June, 1576, Piero Catalano, ‘la più bella, la più divota, la più regolata che mai fusse vista.’ N1 - ASMn., b. 2597, c. 260 N1 - ASMn., b. 2597, c. 268 N1 - ASMn., b. 2597, c. 269 N1 - ASMn., b. 2597, c. 269 N1 - ASMn., b. 2599, 3 July 1576, Il Catalano N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 227 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 241 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 241 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 241 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2599, 18 June 1576, Piero Il Catelano N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 257 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 339 N1 - ASMn., b. 2597, c. 444 N1 - ASMn., A.G., b. 2597, c. 471 PB - The Science Museum Group SN - 2054-5770 LA - eng DO - 10.15180/191106 UR - https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/healing-communal-wounds/ T2 - Science Museum Group Journal