La fiesta barroca en Bilbao : arte y devoción en las celebraciones acaecidas con motivo de la canonización de San Ignacio de Loyola

Abstract

Canonizations, established by the church as pillars of self-assertion, were used during the Baroque period, through festivities, for the codification and development of a sensationalist and rhetorical plasticsensorial system directed at sanctioning ideology. Splendour, consubstantial with the political and religious principles of the prevailing order, took on one of its archetype expressions on the occasion of the canonization of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1622. The repercussions were extremely exhaustive with respect to art. Here we present a view of the activities which were held in Bilbao in celebration of this commemoration. They were centred around a great moralist sermon, developing a deliberate programme in which the metaphysical role of art was converted into the driving power of the very principles of a directed culture