Doctoral Researchers

Christina Alexiou
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 October 2018
Missionary Letters from Constantinople—Early Modern Evangelization Between Conversion and Accommodation

Marlon Bäumer
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2019
The Reformation in the Female Monasteries of Lüneburg

Gabriele Bellinzona
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2020
The Danish-English-Halle mission in Tranquebar and its relationship to Catholicism and the other Christian denominations

Marie Cezanne
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2020
Intertextuality and Penitential Theology in the Waldensian Manuscripts of the Early 16th Century

Daniel Haas
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2021
Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum and “Oriental Christianity”: Interconnections between Halle Pietism and Eastern Christianity in the Eighteenth Century

Amalie Hänsch
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 May 2021
Portraits of the Author Martin Luther: Strategies of Interdenominational Staging between Legitimation and Delegitimation

Andrea Herold-Sievert
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 October 2018
Protestant Encounters and Religious Pluralism: Hallensian Pastors in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

Martin Kindermann
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2021
Mirrorings within the Context of Interconfessional Tensions in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Avi Liberman
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2021
"Il magnanimo cor e invitto io canto di colomba fedel che corse a morte". Hagiography in the Italian Epic of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Judith Lipperheide
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2019
The Practice of Institutionalized Retreat as Popular Pastoral Care, 1660–1760: The maisons de retraite of the Jesuits in France

Leonid Malec
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2020
Trans- and Interconfessional Usage of Clocks in Devotional Culture (16th–18th century)

Anna-Aline Murawska
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 April 2020
Confession in the Simplician Cosmos: Inter- and Transconfessionalism in Grimmelshausen's Satirical Cycle

Oliver Plate
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 October 2021
The Giro della Germania: The Travels of Italian Noblemen through the Holy Roman Empire

Anna Sebastian
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 October 2018
"Christiana Philosophia"—Concepts of Irenicism and Interconfessionality in Andreas Gryphius' Translations of Devotional Literature.

Elena Tolstichin
GRK 2008 doctoral researcher since 1 July 2022
Religious Image and Art Theory in the Prints of Hendrick Goltzius

Missionary Letters from Constantinople—Early Modern Evangelization Between Conversion and Accommodation

Sending missionaries from central Europe to Constantinople via the Mediterranean Sea constituted an important instrument for expanding Europe's political, economic, and religious influence in the Ottoman Empire. In this context, religious envoys often served as political agents for their worldly sovereigns. Constantinople, a cultural melting pot in the early modern period, was one of the largest ports on the Mediterranean and the importance of trade was thus a decisive reason why so many foreign ambassadors and missionaries were sent to the Golden Horn. As Catholic missions in the Mediterranean were largely propagated after the Council of Trent, they were also conceived as a strategy to compete with the spread of Lutheran reformatory ideas. The main activities of the missionaries were pastoral care of Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire and spreading the gospel. As the conversion of Muslims was prohibited, the missions focused on Christians under the sultan's rule. Evangelization required a high level of cultural accommodation and interconfessional communication. To analyse the various dimensions of these cultural and religious encounters, this study examines inter alia missionary correspondence and reports sent to the home provinces and Rome. These documents were intended to be read by many persons across Europe and served to both edify and provide a template for missionary activity. As such, they often gave accounts of everyday and political events illuminating the complexity of early modern religious culture in the Mediterranean region.

 This project deals with post-Tridentine missionary work among the byzantine communities of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Greek archipelago. It examines the interconfessional relationship between Catholic clerics, Lutheran and Reformed theologians, and Greek-Orthodox subjects of the sultan and traces the possibilities and limits of interconfessionality in early modern missionary enterprises.

Email: christina.alexiou"AT"uni-hamburg.de

The Reformation in the Female Monasteries of Lüneburg

In both Catholic and Protestant regions of Europe, a large number of monasteries were disbanded in the 16th and 17th centuries. Particularly in northern Germany, however, female monasteries and Stifte in Protestant areas largely retained their traditional way of life—despite undergoing a change of confession. This was the case for the six female monasteries of the Guelph Principality of Lüneburg, which are still in existence today: Wienhausen, Walsrode, Ebstorf, Lüne, Isenhagen, and Medingen.

As part of reformatory efforts, from 1528 onward Duke Ernst I (1521–1546) intensified his demands that female monasteries in his dominion accept the Lutheran doctrine. Yet both the new doctrine and the Duke’s political approach met with tough resistance from the nuns. As a result, the Reformation in this region emerged as a protracted and uneven transformational process leading to the temporary coexistence of Lutheran nuns and those with a traditional understanding of faith: in Isenhagen, for example, the Reformation was completed as early as 1540/41, yet in Wienhausen, only in 1587. Adherence to pre-Reformation traditions and ceremonies in the female monasteries, however, can be traced well into the 17th century.

This project investigates the process of Reformation in the monasteries together with its trans- and interconfessional implications. It focuses both on analysis of how nuns dealt with the Reformation’s aspirations and the long-term development of Protestant monastic life. Under what conditions did confessional change take place? Which everyday and religious forms of life persisted, and which ones were adapted to suit the new confessional environment? What effects on the (confessional) self-image and identity of those living in the monasteries can be determined from the sources, and how were these self-images perceived from the outside? In answering these questions, I do not understand and examine the monasteries solely as historically, institutionally, or architecturally conditioned spaces, but also as socially and culturally constructed and (constantly re-) negotiated spaces.

Email: marlon.baeumer"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9566

The Danish-English-Halle mission in Tranquebar and its relationship to Catholicism and the other Christian denominations

The first Lutheran mission on the Indian subcontinent began in what is now the Indian federal state of Tamil Nadu. Frederick IV (1671-1730), the Danish King who owned a small trading post in Tranquebar, served as the first sponsor of a Protestant mission in India. In 1705 the group transferred the direction of their mission to the Pietists in Halle. The first Pietist missionaries, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682-1719) and Heinrich Plütschau (1676-1752), arrived in India in 1706. With his missionary zeal, Ziegenbalg decisively shaped the subsequent mission, including as the first translator of the Bible into Tamil. The collaboration between the Danish-Halle mission and the English Society of Promoting the Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in London began in 1726 when the German missionary Benjamin Schultze (1689-1760) settled in Madras.

The local Tamil Nadu community already included many Christian believers before the foundation of the first Lutheran congregation. Jesuits and other Catholic clergymen had long been active among in communities located along the Coromandel Coast and had established a large Catholic community. In addition, communities of Armenians, who settled all over Asia and India and formed small colonies in every important trading center from the 16th to the 19th century, also lived in Tamil Nadu. The Halle missionaries also came into contact with the so-called Thomas Christians, who represented an old form of late antique Christianity whose roots supposedly go back to the activity of the apostle Thomas.

This research project examines the interconfessional relationship of the Lutheran-Pietist mission in Tranquebar and other stations to established local Christian groups (the Roman Catholic Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church and Thomas Christians) active in southern India during the 18th and 19th centuries. Ziegenbalg's letters provide some of the earliest documented evidence of mutual interactions between Protestants and other Christians as do the reports from the Tranquebar Mission published in the “Halle Reports” (Hallesche Berichte) (1710-1772), the first Protestant mission journal, and the “New Halle Reports” (Neue Hallesche Berichte) (1776-1848). The “Halle Reports” contain instructive information about churches of other denominations and traditions. Furthermore, this project will also utilize the letters and internal documents from the Catholic missionaries belonging to the various orders working in India.

Email: gabriele.carlo.bellinzona"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9738

Intertextuality and Penitential Theology in the Waldensian Manuscripts of the Early 16th Century

Differences between Waldensians and the medieval church, as well as with other so-called heretical movements such as the Cathars, led to a prolific literary production which still survives in manuscript form. The Waldensians focused, inter alia, on devotional literature which was widespread during the Middle Ages and produced their own texts centred on virtue and vice, dogmatical and catechetical treatises, sermons and poems. They based numerous texts on earlier models, as becomes evident in the citations and quotations from the Bible, the church fathers, scholastic theologians, medieval collections of sermons or treatises, some of which also document Hussite influences. In doing so, the Waldensians drew heavily on the reservoir of a common Western Christian tradition. Their use of this reservoir takes place in different ways, by adaptation and transformation of this common tradition as well as their omission of certain aspects of it. The Waldensian texts contain allusions to the historical contexts of their creation and address theological literature and tradition.

The surviving manuscripts used for this project originated from the late fifteenth to the early sixteenth century and are written primarily in the Occitan language. These texts are likely copies and revisions of lost originals that had circulated in the region of the Cottian Alps. The Waldensians who had been contemplating accepting the Reformation movement, decided to adhere to it at the Synod of Chanforan (1532). They created the manuscripts at a time when they were faced with the questions about whether and to what extent they should identify with the Reformation movement. Their own literature, written during the Middle Ages and later, served to affirm their unique identity and hence it gained great importance for them.

This project proposes to reconstruct the written culture of the Waldensians from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The research and analysis will focus on the theological arguments Waldensians used and their approach to dealing with the traditions and lines of thought found in the sources they used. The primary focus will be on how they dealt with penitence, a key issue of the time. The project will use and analyze the evidence from the Waldensians’s literary texts as well as that of their critics found in Inquisition files and other sources.

Email: marie.cezanne"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9899

Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum and “Oriental Christianity”: Interconnections between Halle Pietism and Eastern Christianity in the Eighteenth Century

In 1746, the Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum in Halle turned its attention to a new target group, referred to as “Oriental Christianity” in the sources. This term designated the sum of the Eastern churches from different traditions and their members (Eastern Orthodox churches, Oriental Orthodox churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Eastern Catholic churches). After the institute’s founding in 1728, its director Johann Heinrich Callenberg (1694–1760) and his staff had initially focused on missionary work among Jews and Muslims. Now the institute’s printery was upgraded to include a Greek publishing program. For the distribution of the missionary booklets produced in Halle, employees made trips to visit “Oriental Christians” in southeastern Central Europe and the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the institute provided mentoring to Orthodox pupils and students attending the schools of the Halle orphanage and the University of Halle around 1750. The institute received financial and non-material support from an international network of patrons.

Beginning with an initial, comprehensive analysis of the institute’s work with “Oriental Christianity,” this project will critically examine the inter- and transconfessional dynamics of Halle Pietism and Eastern Christianity. The institute serves here as a starting point for an analysis of broader developments in Halle Pietism. Manifold direct and indirect entanglements that had taken shape until the middle of the eighteenth century will be considered against the background of their historical development. This will allow me to examine the continued impact of the interconnections that had already been established under August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) heading into the second and third thirds of the eighteenth century. One focus will be on identifying and examining key individuals and institutions, and the interconnectedness of those involved. For example, the project will investigate the biographical context of the study trips undertaken by Orthodox pupils/students to Halle. Moreover, it will examine the institute’s cooperation and competition with other denominationally diverse actors in the field of missionary work, such as the Danish-English-Halle Mission, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Catholic missionary apparatus.

Email: daniel.haas"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9738

Portraits of the Author Martin Luther: Strategies of Interdenominational Staging between Legitimation and Delegitimation

Martin Luther (1486–1546) is considered the most frequently portrayed person of his time. Originating in the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, his printed portraits were disseminated by the mass media in broadsides and above all in printed publications.

This dissertation will investigate the various forms of reception of Luther’s portraits in printed texts, sources for art historical research into the Reformation that have largely been overlooked to date. It will research and examine these sources against the background of interdenominational and transdenominational self-understandings and perceptions of others. The various forms in which the images were received include reworkings – using techniques like pasting over, painting over, blackening, partially destroying, adding details, etc. – but also written annotations (critical or disparaging in content as well as approving), which in terms of their form are partly smeared, partly accurate, and formulated in German, Latin, and Greek. To date, these forms of reception have only been discussed in relation to a single image of Luther. A comprehensive investigation into  portraits of Luther that have so far gone unnoticed thus constitutes a research gap.

While past research predominantly focused on manifestations of public iconoclasm, recent studies have extended that focus to include a use of images that did not aim for material destruction. This is the starting point for this systematic and interdisciplinary examination of the commentaries and reworkings of Luther’s portraits in printed texts, which will be the first of its kind. The dissertation will begin with a discussion of how portraits and printed texts refer to each other, before using these adaptations to illustrate how statements changed in these combinations of image and text.

E-Mail: amalie.haensch"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9752

Protestant Encounters and Religious Pluralism: Hallensian Pastors in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

Between 1742 and 1786, the "Glauchasche Anstalten" (Glaucha institutions), which were founded by August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) near the town of Halle in 1698, sent 14 Lutheran ministers to the British colony of Pennsylvania. They were to secure the pastoral care of the German-Lutheran parishes there, which were growing constantly due to a strong transatlantic migration movement. Based on the letters and reports of these ministers, their relationships with members of other confessions as well as their dealings with the phenomenon of religious pluralism will be analyzed. Furthermore, the project examines if and in which form interconfessional contacts and relations with other denominations developed in the course of the 18th century. Additionally, the accounts of the clergymen can be compared in order to outline similarities and differences in their attitudes towards confessional diversity and coexistence in the colonial world. 

This dissertation aims at the investigation of the conditions and dynamics of exchange between different Protestant confessions in the Atlantic world as well as its repercussions in the media and the intellectual history of the Hallensians. Presumably, numerous inter- and transconfessional phenomena can be observed in the sources, for example the integration of Anglican or Presbyterian elements of belief into the theological repertoire of the German-Lutheran clergymen. As the different Protestant groups in North America were all rooted in European ecclesiastical and cultural traditions, a set of common basic beliefs existed, which was often superseded, however, by the various (religio-)political conflicts on the European continent. In the North American setting, it is to be expected that the different denominations returned to their transconfessional commonalities and possibly understood them as a basis for common action and ecumenical projects.

 Email: andrea.herold-sievert"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Mirrorings within the Context of Interconfessional Tensions in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

This church historical project will explore the significance of the mirror and the technique of mirroring as intermediaries in the texts and visual media of the early modern period. In many visual artworks, mirrors are used to hint at something that may not or cannot be shown directly. Sometimes this is intended to provoke recipients to reflect on what they have seen themselves. Furthermore, a mirror-inverted depiction might suggest that something should be seen as perverted. In other cases, the choice of this aesthetic device indicates that someone or something cannot be faced because it exceeds human perceptive faculties or abilities. This element of distancing that is inherent to mirrors often reveals a fundamental problem of theological embarrassment: God’s concealment.

Methodologically, this project will reach its goal by investigating the reception history of the bible and analyzing interconfessional tensions that can be found in early modern sources. In order to clarify the determining factors, the project will consider bible commentaries and sermons, focusing on 1 Cor 13:12 and 2 Cor 3:18, as well as works of devotional literature, which are not only significant in the history of piety, but also made a substantial contribution to the interpretation of the scriptures. With respect to the mirror, a line of Lutheran tradition can be traced that leads from the Meditation on Christ’s Passion (Betrachtung des heyligen leydens Christi), written by Martin Luther (1519), to Johann Arndt’s Books of True Christianity (Bücher von wahrem Christenthumb), which were embellished with thematically relevant copperplate emblems from their Riga edition (1678-1681) onward, but also to Heinrich Müller’s Evangelical Heart-Mirror (Evangelischer Hertzens-Spiegel; 1679). Similar routes will also be identified and traced within the Reformed and Catholic contexts. The emblem book Pia Desideria by Herman Hugo (1624), for instance, kept the speculative trinitarian contemplation of Augustine (on 1 Cor 13:12) alive in the seventeenth century.

This project will compare interconfessional and intermedial perspectives in order to analyze these works, investigating their correlations, differences, and reciprocal influences. This will also include an examination of the so far largely overlooked impact made by the Augustinian canon Filippo Picinelli (e.g., in the article “speculum” in Mundus Symbolicus, lat. edition 1681/87) on Lutheran/Reformed spiritual emblematics and devotional literature.

Email: martin.kindermann-1@uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9752

"Il magnanimo cor e invitto io canto di colomba fedel che corse a morte". Vita dei santi nel poema epico cinque e seicentesco ("Il magnanimo cor e invitto io canto di colomba fedel che corse a morte." Hagiography in the Italian Epic of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)

Christian sacred epic had its heyday in Italy in the late sixteenth century. One particularly popular form of this genre was hagiographic epic poetry, which was produced by poets from different backgrounds, for example, by a singer, by notaries, or by clergymen from various orders. These poems differ not only formally, for example in their meter or length, but also in terms of their poetological positions and models.

This research project will examine the hagiographic epic in its diverse cultural and poetological contexts. Interconfessional tensions will play an essential role, considering that in the same period in which the hagiographic epic reached its zenith, the Roman Catholic Church was reacting to Protestant criticism by reforming the canonization and veneration of saints. Thus, the choice of subjects already reveals both an implied confessional polemic and the intraconfessional readjustment of the Roman Catholic concept of sainthood. This becomes all the more evident when poets choose to portray saints in their poems who were clearly aligned with Roman Catholic reform efforts, such as Ignatius of Loyola or Charles Borromeo.

The poems define a new type of hero. Unlike in traditional epic, their protagonists are not warriors but founders of orders or martyrs, female or male. The main hypothesis of my project is that a change took place in the concept of heroism that shifted it into the spiritual realm. Moreover, saints are flawless, inevitably lacking the hamartia required by Aristotle. The hagiographic epic of the late sixteenth century thus delegitimized secular poetics that demand precisely this hamartia from epic heroes. The aim of my study is to profile the interconfessional potential and the possibilities for literary theory provided by this literary form.

 E-Mail: avi.liberman@uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9899

The Practice of Institutionalized Retreat as Popular Pastoral Care, 1660–1760: The maisons de retraite of the Jesuits in France

 “Se retirer du monde”—to withdraw from the world—was a central necessity in early modern piety. Building on this narrative, a form of group retreat known as the retraite commune, first emerged on initiative of the Jesuit Order in Brittany in 1660. The maisons de retraite (houses of retreat) were established especially for this purpose.

Spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the order, were modified to be practiced in groups, and so, for example, the usual forty-day duration was shortened to eight days. A priest used media such as images morales to communicate the contents of the exercises. This more balanced version of the retreat facilitated deeper exploration of spiritual conscience for both lay- and clergymen that was compatible with the daily life of the faithful. With this initiative, the Jesuits thus responded to a longing for solitude that emerged in the 17th century.

With regards to interconfessionality, the focus of the Research Training Group, the question arises as to what extent the maisons de retraite—as spaces in which the faithful were repositioned in relation to the world around them—took up and further developed the reformatory  movements of the 16th century.

This doctoral project examines this phenomenon in France by focusing on a handful of cities such as Amiens, Aurillac, Nantes, Paris, and Rouen. It first examines the socio-political and religious situation in France under Louis XIV to find out what role the maisons de retraite played in missionary contexts. Secondly, it investigates whether and to what extent the practices of retreat in the various houses demonstrate similarity. And thirdly, it analyzes the field of tension between the headquarters of the orders, the Pope, Jesuits in France, and Louis XIV in order to glean information on the function and design of retreats.

In doing so, I draw on a variety of media and source genres that were used to export and communicate the practices of retreat (out-letter books, letters, instructional materials, rules and regulations, material artifacts, etc.).

Email: judith.lipperheide"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Confession in the Simplician Cosmos: Inter- and Transconfessionalism in Grimmelshausen's Satirical Cycle

 At the center of Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen's novel Simplicissimus Teutsch (1668/69) is the satirical biography of an initially naive hero who has to assert himself in a time marked by confessional conflicts. In the research of recent decades, scholars predominately have read Grimmelshausen as a Catholic author because of his documented conversion to Catholicism.Thus, scholarly interest has focused on perceived pro-Catholic passages, plot lines, and specific episodes such as the hermit interlude and on the veneration of saints.

 Departing from this assumption, this dissertation project will demonstrated that Grimmelshausen's work also contains inter- and transdenominational passages that scholars have only investigated rudimentarily. This project will undertake an analysis of the satirical narratives because the mechanism of satire, often defined as "attacking literature," seems particularly well constructed to depict confessional negotiations. Indeed, the reader encounters a wide variety of passages and episodes that treat denominations throughout the ten novels that make up the Simplician cycle. For example, the protagonist encounters Hungarian Anabaptists on his journey through Eastern Europe and observes a dispute between Calvinists and Catholics in an inn. In both cases negative interdenominationalism becomes visible as the demarcation or attempts to demarcate between the denominations are foregrounded. In addition to analyzing such attempts at confessional demarcation, this project will also explore the following questions: Are there also examples of transconfessionality? How are the various denominations represented and is any  pro-Catholic tendency evident? What are the differences in the representation of western and orthodox Christianity? How is the relationship to other religions (Judaism, Islam) depicted?

 Email:anna-aline.murawska@uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9738

 

Trans- and Interconfessional Usage of Clocks in Devotional Culture (16th–18th century)

Clocks played a prominent role in early modern piety. To examine the religious and sacral possibilities offered by this mechanical instrument, this project focuses on a variety of objects designed to make clocks and the hours of the day useful in private devotion. For example, clocks were able to stimulate devotional practices by displaying religious images and inscriptions or by playing certain melodies. Furthermore, prominently placed depictions of clocks in paintings and prints depicting biblical scenes and visions of saints positioned the clock and its sound within the context of divine revelation. Finally, the new genre of clock devotions elevated the clock explicitly to the role of setting the pace of a productive and perpetual devotion.

These and similar objects as well as associated devotional practices already existed in the 14th and 15th century and thereby predate the early modern confessional era. However, they reach their highest circulation during the 17th century in the context of an increased popularity of mechanical philosophy and an intensified reemergence of devotional practices from High and Late Middle Ages. By analyzing clock related objects that were created during this period the project aims to document lively inter- and transconfessional negotiations about time between authors and artists belonging to different denominations. The main hypothesis of this project is that certain forms of media and objects influenced and, to some degree, conditioned what people perceived and thought when a clock rang its hours. In some cases, this happened explicitly within the boundaries of a specific denomination. However, transconfessionality was much more common in this process.

Mail: leonid.malec"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 – 9752

The Giro della Germania: The Travels of Italian Noblemen through the Holy Roman Empire

In the long history of travel, the so-called Grand Tour has been a well-known phenomenon. In the context of this educational journey, which lasted several months or years, young European noblemen usually travelled through several neighboring states and to numerous European courts, as well as to educational institutions, in order to broad their social, artistic, literary, and musical horizons. Journeys to destinations such as France and especially Italy have already been well researched. In contrast, Grand Tours going in the opposite direction, i.e., coming from Italy, have hardly received any attention so far. However, young Italian noblemen were also part of the European phenomenon and crossed the Alps in large numbers for this purpose. Inevitably or as planned, their journeys also led them through the Holy Roman Empire, to which numerous travel reports bear witness. The majority of these early modern documents date from the period between the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the French Revolution in 1789, and have been preserved in Italian archives and libraries in the form of diaries or fictional letters. A few of these reports are (also) available in printed or edited form. Supplemented by biographical source material, this dissertation aims to use these travelogues to trace the classic routes – a Giro della Germania – of early modern Italian noblemen through the Holy Roman Empire and, within this framework, to analyze their impressions.

In the mostly Catholic traveler’s reports, and thus also in the dissertation, particular attention is paid to confessional observations made of the Empire, which was very heterogeneous in this regard. The Italian travel routes not only led through Catholic territories, but always  through Protestant territory as well or even on purpose. In this context, travelers either appreciated or contested pre-confessional similarities, made positive or negative transconfessional comparisons, and established or avoided interconfessional contacts. This central matter raises several epistemic questions, such as how the connection between confession and economy, and the impact of certain factors on the travelogues were perceived – like the traveler’s level of education, his geographical origin (northern or southern Italy), or the political organization of his native state (principality or republic) – which this dissertation aims to answer.

E-Mail: oliver.plate"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9852

"Christiana Philosophia"—Concepts of Irenicism and Interconfessionality in Andreas Gryphius' Translations of Devotional Literature.

Religious pluralization in the aftermath of the Reformation resulted in various confessions all of which disagreed on both the substance and the institutions of the true religion. This caused many different political and social problems in early modern society, particularly during the Thirty Years' War. Debate on how to deal with theological dissent gave rise to various individuals and networks concerned with interconfessional irenicism and unity. This project seeks to localize Andreas Gryphius' theological point of view in relation to his experience of the Thirty Years' War as a representation of how the focus of life in the 17th century fluctuated between the salvation of the soul in the afterlife and the everyday reality of constant religious dispute.

While Gryphius' literary work has been the subject of academic study and belletristics for decades, scholarship has largely neglected his translations and editions of contemporary devotional literature. Gryphius' translations of the work of the Anglican historian and writer Sir Richard Baker (1568–1645), in particular, provide a new perspective on this very question. This project analyzes confessional allegiance, irenicism, and interconfessionality in Gryphius' yet unexplored translations and their influence on the poet's late literary works.

Email: anna.sebastian"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Religious Image and Art Theory in the Prints of Hendrick Goltzius

Numerous paintings by the Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius are testament to his reflections on the status and production of profane and pagan art. This is quite evident, for example, in the second sheet of what is referred to as the Fortuna sequence, Ars and Usus (1582), which illuminates the connection between art and practice, as well as in Goltzius’s staging of the Roman god Mercury as patron of the arts in the series The Planets (1596). In contrast, there is little evidence that Goltzius’s works address the status or production of (Christian) religious art, which is rather surprising because at least two of the decades in which Goltzius was creating religious images also coincide with a period of Dutch history in which “the image question” took on new virulence in the reality of artists’ lives – for example in Haarlem, Goltzius’s place of residence and work, where figurative statues and paintings in the former St. Bavo Church were removed in 1578 and, from 1580 onward, replaced by scriptural paintings. The reason for this artistic transformation was the establishment of the Dutch Reformed Church, i.e. the very denomination to which the harshest critics of images professed themselves and which made the strictest demands on decoration in church interiors. In transconfessional analyses, this project examines the extent to which this development is reflected in Goltzius`s prints in terms of both image and art theory.

E-Mail: elena.tolstichin@uni-hamburg.de

Tel: (040) 42838 - 9725