Andrew Casper
Prof. Andrew Casper is a specialist of Renaissance and Baroque art of southern Europe, and particularly religious imagery in Italy in the late 1500s and 1600s. His recent research has examined the artistic conception of the Shroud of Turin, looking at how early-modern devotional manuals draw from contemporary art theory to portray the Shroud’s imprint of Christ’s body as a divine work of art. This has culminated in various published essays and a book titled An Artful Relic: The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy (Penn State University Press, 2021). He has previously researched the early career of Domenikos Theotokopoulos “El Greco” and religious art after the Counter Reformation in Italy. He is the author of numerous essays and articles on sixteenth-century icons and the religious paintings from El Greco’s Italian period. His book Art and the Religious Image in El Greco’s Italy (Penn State University Press, 2014) uses El Greco’s early paintings to advance new ideas concerning the conception of religious imagery after the Council of Trent.
Prof. Casper has presented scholarly work on these and related topics at the conferences of the College Art Association, the Renaissance Society of America, Sixteenth Century Society, and at other national and international venues. He is a recipient of external grants and fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, Art History Publication Initiative, College Art Association, Fulbright, Howard Foundation at Brown University, Italian Art Society, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Newberry Library.
Prof. Casper’s current research examines the artistic, sacred, and scientific portrayal of Christ’s body in Italian devotional painting of the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as the cult of the miraculous icon of Santa Maria della Consolata in Turin. At Miami he teaches courses in Renaissance and Baroque art in Europe and Latin America. He was a 2012 finalist for the E. Phillips Knox Teaching Award, the university’s highest recognition for innovative teaching, and is the winner of the 2014 Miami University Distinguished Teaching Award.
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania
M.A. University of Pennsylvania
B.A. University of Michigan (Go Blue!)
Prof. Casper has presented scholarly work on these and related topics at the conferences of the College Art Association, the Renaissance Society of America, Sixteenth Century Society, and at other national and international venues. He is a recipient of external grants and fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, Art History Publication Initiative, College Art Association, Fulbright, Howard Foundation at Brown University, Italian Art Society, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Newberry Library.
Prof. Casper’s current research examines the artistic, sacred, and scientific portrayal of Christ’s body in Italian devotional painting of the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as the cult of the miraculous icon of Santa Maria della Consolata in Turin. At Miami he teaches courses in Renaissance and Baroque art in Europe and Latin America. He was a 2012 finalist for the E. Phillips Knox Teaching Award, the university’s highest recognition for innovative teaching, and is the winner of the 2014 Miami University Distinguished Teaching Award.
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania
M.A. University of Pennsylvania
B.A. University of Michigan (Go Blue!)
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Books by Andrew Casper
WINNER OF THE 2022 ROLAND H. BAINTON BOOK PRIZE FROM THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY SOCIETY AND CONFERENCE
In 1578, a fourteen-foot linen sheet bearing the faint bloodstained imprint of a human corpse was presented to tens of thousands of worshippers in Turin, Italy, as one of the original shrouds used to prepare Jesus Christ’s body for entombment. From that year into the next century, the Shroud of Turin emerged as Christianity’s preeminent religious artifact. In an unprecedented new look, Andrew R. Casper sheds new light on one of the world’s most famous and controversial religious objects.
Since the early twentieth century, scores of scientists and forensic investigators have attributed the Shroud’s mysterious images to painterly, natural, or even supernatural forces. Casper, however, shows that this modern opposition of artifice and authenticity does not align with the cloth’s historical conception as an object of religious devotion. Examining the period of the Shroud’s most enthusiastic following, from the late 1500s through the 1600s, he reveals how it came to be considered an artful relic—a divine painting attributed to God’s artistry that contains traces of Christ’s body. Through probing analyses of materials created to perpetuate the Shroud’s cult following—including devotional, historical, and theological treatises as well as printed and painted reproductions—Casper uncovers historicized connections to late Renaissance and Baroque artistic cultures that frame an understanding of the Shroud’s bloodied corporeal impressions as an alloy of material authenticity and divine artifice.
This groundbreaking book introduces rich, new material about the Shroud’s emergence as a sacred artifact. It will appeal to art historians specializing in religious and material studies, historians of religion, and to general readers interested in the Shroud of Turin.
Articles by Andrew Casper
Book Reviews by Andrew Casper
WINNER OF THE 2022 ROLAND H. BAINTON BOOK PRIZE FROM THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY SOCIETY AND CONFERENCE
In 1578, a fourteen-foot linen sheet bearing the faint bloodstained imprint of a human corpse was presented to tens of thousands of worshippers in Turin, Italy, as one of the original shrouds used to prepare Jesus Christ’s body for entombment. From that year into the next century, the Shroud of Turin emerged as Christianity’s preeminent religious artifact. In an unprecedented new look, Andrew R. Casper sheds new light on one of the world’s most famous and controversial religious objects.
Since the early twentieth century, scores of scientists and forensic investigators have attributed the Shroud’s mysterious images to painterly, natural, or even supernatural forces. Casper, however, shows that this modern opposition of artifice and authenticity does not align with the cloth’s historical conception as an object of religious devotion. Examining the period of the Shroud’s most enthusiastic following, from the late 1500s through the 1600s, he reveals how it came to be considered an artful relic—a divine painting attributed to God’s artistry that contains traces of Christ’s body. Through probing analyses of materials created to perpetuate the Shroud’s cult following—including devotional, historical, and theological treatises as well as printed and painted reproductions—Casper uncovers historicized connections to late Renaissance and Baroque artistic cultures that frame an understanding of the Shroud’s bloodied corporeal impressions as an alloy of material authenticity and divine artifice.
This groundbreaking book introduces rich, new material about the Shroud’s emergence as a sacred artifact. It will appeal to art historians specializing in religious and material studies, historians of religion, and to general readers interested in the Shroud of Turin.
Dublin, 7-10 April 2021 (https://www.rsa.org/page/RSADublin2021)
Painted Faces: Documenting the Frescoed Façade in Renaissance Rome and Beyond
Session organizer: Alexis Culotta, Tulane University
In early sixteenth-century Rome, as the architectural language of grand domestic spaces was
being further refined, elaborate façade fresco decorations became popular. These cycles, some of
which were designed to root the structure (and its owner) in Roman antiquity and others which
aimed to make a humble space more imposing, were celebrated in their day and even
documented (albeit sporadically) by artists. This session welcomes papers that explore frescoed
facades in Rome and beyond from various perspectives, such as earlier roots, relations to other
cities in Italy (such as Venice, where the tradition has been more extensively studied), or
“painted faces” as a mode of artistic exchange.
Please send proposals to the organizer ([email protected]) by Monday, July 13, 2020. Paper
proposals must include:
• Abstract (150 words max)
• Paper title (25 words max)
• Your full name, current affiliation, email address, and Ph.D. completion date (past or
expected)
• A brief c.v. (300 words max, and must be in a list – not narrative – form)
• A list of keywords (8 max)
*Please note: Speakers must become IAS and RSA members by Aug 15.