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A review by binxthinx
Afterlives of the Saints: Stories from the Ends of Faith by Colin Dickey
4.0
A fascinating but messy book. Colin Dickey is a wonderful writer, so despite how odd and convoluted his tangents can get, and how unclear some of his connections can be, it’s still an engaging read. I learned so many unusual things like:
-medieval Christians maintained men were closer to God because semen is frothy and contains the soul, whereas menstrual blood isn’t frothy and so lacks soul
-Saint Agatha is the patron saint of bakers because Catholics who couldn’t read thought iconography of her severed breasts looked like bread loaves
-the whole lector vs ostensor vs sector style of teaching medical anatomy
-saints/religious men who were called stylites stood on pillars in the dessert for years and it was just as gross as you’d imagine
-Michelangelo’s self portrait as a flayed skin in the tradition of Saint Bartholomew and the controversy about him depicting genitalia in his Sistine Chapel art
-racist WWII human “trophies” and the infamous Life magazine propaganda
-the Catholic Church having to make rules about art depicting saints and religious figures not being too “seductive” to avoid “perverted visitations” and the time a bunch of Venetian patricians tried to have sex with a Jesus statue
-the extent of Saint Sebastian becoming a gay icon, including Oscar Wilde’s commentary and its relation to artist Yukio Mishima’s seppuku
-Saint Anthony becoming the patron Saint of epileptics and ergotism and skin disease because of his wild hallucinations/devil visits and then becoming associated with pigs because lard was used to treat skin ailments
-Charles Dickens’ controversy over spontaneous combustion
-the Catholic Church’s history with testes— the Old Testament proclaiming God doesn’t want humans or other animals with damaged testes to the hundreds of years of church-associated castrati
Also, some insightful information about paintings and other artwork of Saints, really helped make the art make more sense.
-medieval Christians maintained men were closer to God because semen is frothy and contains the soul, whereas menstrual blood isn’t frothy and so lacks soul
-Saint Agatha is the patron saint of bakers because Catholics who couldn’t read thought iconography of her severed breasts looked like bread loaves
-the whole lector vs ostensor vs sector style of teaching medical anatomy
-saints/religious men who were called stylites stood on pillars in the dessert for years and it was just as gross as you’d imagine
-Michelangelo’s self portrait as a flayed skin in the tradition of Saint Bartholomew and the controversy about him depicting genitalia in his Sistine Chapel art
-racist WWII human “trophies” and the infamous Life magazine propaganda
-the Catholic Church having to make rules about art depicting saints and religious figures not being too “seductive” to avoid “perverted visitations” and the time a bunch of Venetian patricians tried to have sex with a Jesus statue
-the extent of Saint Sebastian becoming a gay icon, including Oscar Wilde’s commentary and its relation to artist Yukio Mishima’s seppuku
-Saint Anthony becoming the patron Saint of epileptics and ergotism and skin disease because of his wild hallucinations/devil visits and then becoming associated with pigs because lard was used to treat skin ailments
-Charles Dickens’ controversy over spontaneous combustion
-the Catholic Church’s history with testes— the Old Testament proclaiming God doesn’t want humans or other animals with damaged testes to the hundreds of years of church-associated castrati
Also, some insightful information about paintings and other artwork of Saints, really helped make the art make more sense.