 Thank you. Like others before me, I would like to thank the Barnes Foundation, the wonderful people here for putting on such a wonderful symposium, as well as the other organizers. And I want to thank you, the audience, who have stayed here until the very end. We appreciate it. The Archdcon fraternity of the Holy Crucifix of San Marcello in Rome had its origins in two miraculous events. First, its crucifix inexplicably survived a devastating fire in the church of San Marcello in 1519. Then, a procession of its crucifix through Rome miraculously ended an outbreak of the plague in 1522. The confraternity expressed its unusual commitment to this wondrous, miracle-working image of Christ on the cross through religious rituals and urban processions. Developing the theory of conspicuous devotion from the ideas of conspicuous consumption and self-fashioning, this paper examines the company's ostentatious displays of faith during Holy Week and Jubilee years in the 16th century. So Thorstein Veblen first coined the term conspicuous consumption to describe the acquisition of luxury goods or services as a demonstration of economic power by the upper class of the industrial age in order to attain or maintain social status. This study demonstrates the confraternity of the crucifixo analogously spent lavishly on religious rituals in order to achieve its elevated standing. Self-fashioning as first articulated by Stephen Greenblatt in relationship to 16th century English literature is understood as the artful construction of identity. This paper argues the confraternity's public acts of devotion fashioned an image of the group as a body committed to the Catholic Reformation. Furthermore, the Sedality's public ceremonies also manifested its dedication to igniting devotion to its crucifix through performance. As the confraternity brothers proclaimed, the company displayed its cultic devotion so that others might be moved to devotion by the spectacle of the miraculous crucifix. The confraternity's public exposition of its faith also aimed to stir devotion in spectators. Therefore, excuse me, therefore, while conspicuous devotion resembles conspicuous consumption and self-fashioning and its focus on the social reputation of the individual or group, it differs significantly from those behaviors in also being directed outward to the spiritual benefit of others. This discussion of the curtsy feces Easter sepulcher's Holy Thursday processions and Jubilee celebrations defines this new theory of conspicuous devotion and also underlines the changing nature of lay devotion in Rome during the Catholic Reformation. In 1556, Pope Paul IV initiated the annual celebration of the Easter sepulcher in the Vatican. The pontiff symbolically buried the body of Christ in the form of the consecrated host in an ephemeral architectural structure representing Christ's tomb on the altar of the Pauline chapel. The host remained in the sepulcher until Easter Sunday when the pope retrieved it for Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. A drawing attributed to Federico Zuccaro records the appearance of the Pauline Easter sepulcher. However, evidence in the curtsy feces archive indicates that the company had initiated the same Eucharistic practice in the Church of San Marcello at least two years earlier. In March 1555, a confraternity guardian proposed that the company purchased supplies for the sepulcher, as was done last year, that is in 1554. Most importantly, he noted that the observance had been of great devotion to the people. Prominent members of the pope's family were members of the curtsy fiso, and it is likely the confraternity inspired Paul IV to adopt the ritual at the Vatican. In a normal year, the company spent about 40 to 90 scooty on the object, but costs ballooned in 1559 to a staggering 400 scooty or approximately 17 years' work for an unskilled laborer. An anonymous booklet that describes the apparatuses built by the curtsy fiso and others that year identifies the Vatican sepulcher as by far the most beautiful and sumptuous. However, the lay apparatuses were remarkable as well. Somber, black, velvet cloth hung from the church's interiors. Countless torches and candles burned continuously, like those atop the valley straight in Zuccaro's design and the vote of candles that cover the stairs and latticework. For the contemporary English priest Gregory Martin, decorations later in the century evoked both a tomb and a paradise. Being without and seeing all shut up with clothes, he wrote, thou wouldst think it a very cave of darkness and a grave of death. But being within, thou wilt imagine it a certain paradise. As in Zuccaro's design, the host rested ensconced in caskets set in temporary architectural structures on the church's main altars, which were decorated with statues, paintings, and other ornaments, like the beautiful doors with columns in the form of a cattle fork and other beautiful ornaments highlighted by the booklet. Thus, a confraternal Easter sepulcher, as likely invented by the curtsy fiso, consisted of the host entombed within imposing ephemeral architecture, veiled by luxurious draperies and lit by innumerable candles. In 1557, Paul IV invited the curtsy fiso and the gonfalone, Rome's two most prominent confraternities, to join him in the celebration of the sepulcher at the Vatican, and thus established Rome's holy Thursday procession. However, my research confirms it was not until the papacy of Gregory XIII, some 15 years later, that the procession became a regular observance and the city's most conspicuous holy week devotion, a spectacular venue for the lady's collective adoration of the Eucharist. Martin offers a vivid account to the procession he encountered during his stay in Gregory XIII's Rome. And the famous Seven Churches of Rome print visualizes key aspects of the ritual. The procession began at dusk. Having prepared themselves in their own churches, the city's confraternities met at Ponte Sant'Angelo and solemnly made their way to the Vatican palace. As Martin remembered, the orderly throng marched by company in pairs, as you can see in these details. In every company, he says, a great crucifix, as it were, their standard. Every company with their great choir singing all the way. Great crescent lights in the forward, and every one in every company that march it, carrying a long torch of wax. So that for three hours space, the street from the castle to the palace is full of lights, as it were, the firmament beset with great stars. With their lights ablaze, accompanied by choirs and punctuated by great processional crucifixes like the Croce Fiso's miraculous image, the pious mass solemnly traveled to the papal palace, where they venerated the host on display in the sepulchre of the Pauline Chapel and then continued on to St. Peter's to view the basilica's passion relics. The Croce Fiso's meeting minutes and payment records affirm the event's growing prestige and splendor. In March 1593, the company produced an itemized to-do list for the procession. Two members were assigned to invite the Spanish ambassador. Five others were appointed to invite 30 dignitaries, including Pope Clement VIII's carnal nephew. Others were asked to order and guide the procession, restore the processional crosses and batons, acquire the necessary wax, and enlist 200 men to carry the torches. Two members were given the honor of carrying the company's processional crucifix and granted the authority to spend as much as necessary to prepare it. Flagelands, wearing open-backed robes like those in the lower corners of this rare surviving processional standard, accompanied the cortege, all flayed and bleeding in a piteous fashion as the French SES Michel de Montaigne described others he witnessed. Finally, one confraternity member was responsible for hiring a 16 voice choir from Santa Maria Maggiore, while another was assigned to direct the music with the aid of a companion. In all, nearly 300 individuals participated in the Croce Fisso's display. The increasing ostentation of these displays may be attributed in part to the renewed energy of the church during the Catholic Reformation, especially as expressed in Jubilee years when pilgrims flocked to Rome every 25 years to earn plenary indulgences or full remission of all temporal punishment for sin. Commemorative prints, like Holy Rome, visualize the new patterns of ritual devotion established by Gregory XIII's Holy Year of 1575. The first it should be noted after the Council of Trent. In the print, God the Father emerges from heaven above to bless the Holy Year. Regenerative waters identified in the print as the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, issue from the dove below him and then merge to form a moat around the personified city. Quoting Psalms, the inscription on the St. Paul's walls explains, the stream of the river maketh the city of God joyful. The most high hath sanctified his own tabernacle. The movement of confraternity members, pilgrims, and noble clerics around the city to the four major basilicas in the print's four corners mirrors the sanctifying and circling water motion of the waters. Orderly pairs of confraternity brothers process from St. Peter's to Santa Maria Maggiore and from Santa Maria Maggiore to the Lateran while clusters of pilgrims traverse the other two sides. Their collective movement and the blessed waters of God thus sanctify the city and transform Rome into a fortress of faith. Contemporary observers widely recognize the Croce Fiso's exhibition of its miracle working crucifix as one of the holy year's most inspiring sites. The Spanish Jesuit, Rafael Riera, distinguished the company as the exemplar of piety in his history of the Jubilee, dedicating a full chapter to the Croce Fiso's Linton devotions and explicitly recognizing their reform identity. Most spectacularly, he reported that although a mile separates the company's chapel in San Marcello from Castle Sant'Angelo, the head of the holy Thursday procession reached the medieval fortress before the miraculous crucifix even emerged from the church. The distance can be loosely traced on the 1593 plan of Rome. The holy image was carried on a very triumphant apparatus Riera recorded in the guise of a trofeo or trophy, 16 feet high with an abundance of silver with five great lamps and burning torches. A print of the company's much later 1775 apparatus offers an idea of the enormity of the processional beer. The participants around the crucifix marched with the greatest reverence Riera noted, singing psalms and hymns of great devotion. Moreover, a nearly innumerable multitude of men and women carrying torches and demonstrating their devotion followed behind. Their devotion was conspicuous and confraternity brothers and contemporary observers alike recognized the power of the company's spectacle to stimulate faith in accordance with the aims of the Catholic Reformation. Understanding the sacred significance of the company's rituals and processions then necessitates a reevaluation of the devotional function of 16th century Roman painting which I can only briefly discuss here by way of conclusion. In the confraternity's oratory, for example, conspicuous form served conspicuous devotion. The Council of Trent's edict that sacred art should be clear, didactic and free of lasciviousness is well known. What is often overlooked is its call for compelling religious images. The faithful, the council decreed, and here I repeat a quote we've actually already heard today but in a different translation. The council decreed that the faithful should be aroused to adore and love God and to practice devotion with art. As if in response to the council's edict, the prayer hall's fresco cycle of the invention and exultation of the true cross, that is the cross on which Christ was crucified, is not purely didactic but rather devoutly conspicuous and conspicuously devout. Individual scenes, like the battle between the Byzantine emperor Heraclius and the Persian king, are mannered. Although set in a landscape, the space is irrational with telescope gaps between foreground, middle ground, and background. The figures move in elaborate serpentine poses. The rulers fight for control of Christ's cross in a seemingly choreographed dance. Exaggerated changes in hue, model forms, and heighten the decorative value of the costumes. Such images seek to stimulate, stir, or awaken devotion through artifice. They are devoutly conspicuous. And yet the fresco is set within an exceedingly legible program that is conspicuously devout in its didactic clarity. The compositions guide the viewer around the oratory, compelling him or her to meditate on the narrative. On the left wall, for instance, Rapeuxois figures between the duel or before the duel point to the following episode. There, the strong diagonal linking the emperor and angel directs the viewer forward to the final scene where a somber march continues the processional movement into the distance. Individually, the fresco's inspire devotion with artifice. Together, they teach with narrative clarity. Thus, although often maligned today for its stylization, the sumptuous artistic mode functioned in the crocefiso's oratory like the company's public religious performances to proclaim its status, fashion the company's reflectivity, and stimulate piety. Thank you.