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This paper enquires into the political and juridical themes underlying Giacomo Puccini’s opera Tosca (1900). Through the comparison of Puccini’s score, the libretto by Giacosa and Illica, and the original play by Sardou, I will present a twofold reading of the intertwinement between politics, religion, and law in this musical work. On the one hand, I will show that the police power represented by the character of Scarpia can be interpreted, from a Benjaminian standpoint, as a violent power that shapes the legal and religious order. On the other hand, I will argue that the artistic couple made by Cavaradossi and Tosca is politically significant in so far as their art represents an attempt to deactivate Scarpia’s pervading and oppressive force. The conclusion will contend that the aesthetics in this opera subtends the aspiration for an “inoperative”-wise revolution in religious institutions as well as in legal and political relations.

Deciphering the Shi Jun Sarcophagus Using Sogdian Religious Beliefs, Tales, and Hymns

The discovery of the Northern Zhou (557–581AD) tomb of Shi Jun (494–579 CE) presents us with spectacular visual information about the Sogdians in medieval China, which was previously available to us only through written sources. The iconography-heavy sarcophagus in the tomb is an important vehicle for understanding the practices of religious (and everyday) life in the Sino-Sogdian community. The imagery on the Shi Jun sarcophagus reveals a mix of religious beliefs that existed among migrants in the premodern Eurasian world. Due to the absence of a dominant religion associated with Sino-Sogdian funerals, the iconography of the sarcophagus cannot be interpreted within an orthodox theological framework. Instead, it is possible that more syncretistic, indigenous, and regionally based folklore, tales, and hymns, in combination with a diversity of religious beliefs, might explain the sarcophagus’s enigmatic imagery, since the social order and religious order are often mutually reinforcing.

Camillus de Lellis (1550–1614), Patron Saint of Hospitals

Camillus de Lellis was an Italian nobleman born in 1550 who served as a soldier fighting the Turks. Three times between 1571 and 1584, his abscessed leg forced him to seek care in a Roman hospital; each time he worked there during and after his treatment. He was disgusted by the bad care in the hospital and decided a religious order devoted to helping the sick was the best way to better physical and spiritual care. In 1585, he founded the Ministers of the Sick, today called the Order of Saint Camillus. It gained full papal approval as a religious order in 1591. By 1607, it had 242 members working in ten leading Italian cities.

Who Owned Florence?: Religious Institutions and Property Ownership in the Early Modern City

This study employs a 1561 tax census to survey estimated property incomes in Florence with particular attention to lay and ecclesiastical religious institutions. Its key findings are five. First, religious institutions were collectively the wealthiest corporate entities in the city, holding one fifth of all residential properties and one third of all workshops, and drawing 20.2 percent of all property income generated within city walls. Second, many were civic- and lay-religious institutions such as confraternities and hospitals. Third, the property income of religious houses was distributed across multiple organizations while that held by the Florentine diocese was concentrated in a few. Fourth, among religious orders, Mendicant houses had a larger urban presence than the older contemplative houses. Fifth, the property holdings of the formally defunct military-religious order of the Knights of S. Jacopo signal the deftness with which some institutions adapted to new circumstances. Overall, this survey of property incomes helps quantify the shape of power in the Florentine religious universe.

Monastycyzm w świecie duchowości ponowoczesnej. Organizacja Morska zakonem religijnym Kościoła scjentologicznego

Article synthetically describes the history, assumptions and a short description of the Religious Order of the Scientology – Sea Organisation, which was founded in 1967, thirteen years after when in Los Angeles was registered the first institution of the Church of Scientology. The text of the article is based on three basic types of sources: literature, memoirs of former members of the order and the relationship of current active monks, the information from whom was received at query time research at the Ideal Orgs (headquarters) of the Church in Spain and Hungary in 2016. Apart from presenting the image of contemporary monasticism in terms of the Scientology also is explained the basic religious concepts, that relevant for this Ron Hubbard’s cult. The last part of the article is devoted to the symbolism of the Sea Org, which is really a reflection of the ideological assumptions that entity.

Portuguese Monarchs and Their Royal Convents and Monasteries, Early Renaissance-Manueline

Following the pattern in vogue during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the religious architecture policy followed by the Portuguese kings was based on the construction of buildings. This approach unsurprisingly sought to respond to the growth of religious orders in the kingdom and simultaneously served as a mirror of magnificence and royal power. In order to make the construction sites of such buildings more successful, working procedures such as the direction of general work, how the tasks were divided, and how workers were paid needed an in-depth but careful adjustment. The royal patronage around the Mendicants (mainly Dominicans and Franciscans) throughout the 15th century appeared to be dominant. At the end of the century, during the reign of King Manuel I, the tendency was to favor and support instead the Hieronymites, a contemplative and intellectual religious order, responsible for spreading the Devotio Moderna and a reformist spirit centered on Erasmus. The Monastery of Batalha, the Monastery of Jesus of Setubal, and the Monastery of Jerónimos are three representative sides of an architectural strategy where power and spirituality mix in the interior and exterior of buildings that fortunately still remain.

A Miraculous Materialism: Lines of Flight in We Have a Pope and Corpo Celeste

This article considers Nanni Moretti's We Have a Pope ( Habemus Papam, 2011) and Alice Rohrwacher's Corpo Celeste (2011) via the notion of lines of flight as developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. We argue that, in spite of stylistic and thematic differences, the two films present clear similarities since they highlight and address conflicts and tensions existing within the contemporary Catholic religious order. Both films present cracks and horizons of becoming within the institutionalised Catholic Church, tracing possible paths of transformation for viewers aligning with and following the two main characters. We argue, concurrently, that Corpo Celeste – because of specific formal and conceptual choices – engenders a complete reimagining of the transcendent realm within a miraculous or animist materialist and immanent paradigm.