religious life 397
generally linked to a particular confraternity and mainly destined for pro-
cessional use, which were often adorned with precious clothing donated
by the faithful. The donors could even reserve the right to have these gar-
ments returned to them for their own use, in the archaic conviction that
a garment worn by the Virgin (identified with her simulacrum) could pro-
tect its wearer.
The confraternal phenomenon grew extensively in the 17th and 18th
centuries. it should be remembered how, in the 18th century, this devel-
opment took the atypical form of religious companies and confraternities
that arose around the capitelli—a uniquely spontaneous form of popular
piety which was resisted by the authorities worried about this expansion
of associative piety and the potential conflicts linked to its management
Three specific devotional phenomena had their origins in the 18th cen-
tury: the movement of the Esercizi Spirituali or Missioni popolari,41 pro-
moted with great success in the 1740s by the Jesuits, who preached them
four times annually in several churches for the space of eight days with an
intervention of the patriarch on the first and last day; the Via Crucis (an
ecclesiastical ritual that commemorates the passion and death of Christ),
begun in 1747 in san Polo through the initiative of an innovative and
erudite priest and complete with 14 stations painted by giandomenico
Tiepolo—a practice that would later be imitated in other parishes, but
which only in the second half of the 19th century would meet with full
success and be extended to all parishes with the approval of the patri-
archs; finally, the devotion of the sacred Heart of Jesus also had 18th-cen-
tury origins.
With regard to the cult of saints, the 18th century stood out for the
birth of several political cults. The canonization of doge Pietro orseolo
(1731), for example, occurred in a period in which the cult of the doges
was being revived as part of a more general reinforcement of the Vene-
tian state Church intended, however, to be complementary, not contrary,
to the Holy see. in this same trend may be inserted the other 18th-
century political cults, and particularly the official reproposal of the Vene-
tian saints engineered by senator flaminio Corner, though these would
41 The spiritual exercises derive their name from a work by ignatius loyola, which pro-
poses a 4-week “training course” in meditation and practical methods of prayer intended
to purify those who follow it from the disorderly effects of sin and instill in them the joy
of being one with Christ.