The spiritual turmoil of the sixteenth century had a profound impact on religious life throughout Italy. Art and architecture were directly implicated in the seismic historical events of the age, as the Catholic Church countered Protestant iconoclasm through the embrace of sacred images as decreed by the Council of Trent in 1563. In this volume, Marie-Louise Lillywhite considers the impact of religious reform on the devotional art and architecture of sixteenth-century Venice. Interrogating early modern censorship, artistic liberty, notions of decorum tied to depictions of the body, and the role of sacred images in the shaping of local identity, she shows how Venice, a crossroads city exposed to a rich gamut of religious and artistic currents, serves as a fascinating case study through which to explore these themes. Her study reconstructs the conditions that enabled artistic invention to prevail and how artists became interpreters of spiritual values.

Shortlisted, 2025 Art and Christianity Book Award, Art+Christianity

Winner, 2026 Book Award, Reformation Research Consortium

‘In this meticulously researched and eloquently argued book, Lillywhite provides an unprecedentedly detailed account of the relationship between the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century and Venetian art of the period. She shows that, so far from being a repressive force, as is often supposed, the post-Tridentine church stimulated a fresh creativity among leading Venetian painters such as Tintoretto, Veronese, and Palma Giovane. Among the many responses to new religious needs analysed by the author were the invention of a range of new iconographies, the proliferation of elaborate tabernacles of the Sacrament, and the massive increase in the pictorial decoration of the city’s churches and confraternities. This is contextual art history at its very best.’

Peter Humfrey - Emeritus Professor, University of St Andrews

‘I have been waiting for an art historian to write this book. It is a well-considered, balanced, and evidence-based examination of the relationships between religious images and the Counter-Reformation in Venice.’

Louisa C. Matthew - Professor of Art History, Union College

‘This book makes a fine revisionist contribution to our understanding of the impact of religious reform on Venetian art in the later sixteenth century. Lillywhite’s arguments are underpinned by superb and wide-ranging scholarship, including new archival discoveries. Her wide-ranging text is enlivened by many penetrating and original observations which very effectively challenge the standard ideas about the negative impact of the so-called “Counter-Reformation” on Venetian artistic culture. In this book, we learn that it was the artists themselves who possessed the greatest agency in Venetian artistic culture, developing imaginative and innovative responses to the changing religious ideas of the period. Rather than rehearsing again the well-worn scholarly clichés about the top-down enforcement of theological ideas in the period, Lillywhite persuasively argues that the Catholic Church, and its famous decrees offered at the Council of Trent, did not, in fact, establish close control over artistic culture in the period.’

Tom Nichols - Reader, University of Glasgow

'This engrossing and readable book reassesses the role of art in the religious reforms of sixteenth-century Venice.'

Deborah Howard Source: Journal of Religious History

'… presents us with a more accurate and complete picture of the artistic production in Venice post-Trent, which is likely to become the standard reference on the topic … an ideal companion for the study of sacred art in Venice during the 16th century not only for scholars of Venetian art, but also for students of art history at all levels.'

Maria Aresin Source: Sehepunkte