Abstract

From the second half of the fifteenth century onwards, the use of printed images in the context of devotion and celebration enjoyed a prominent role in the visual strategies of the cult of the saints in general, and in those of the Franciscan Observants in particular.1 The case of Giovanni of Capestrano, by way of those repeatedly 'broken paths'2 that characterizes his tortured path to canonization, makes for both a privileged vantage point and an interesting case study, however late chronologically. In fact, while we must wait for the seventeenth century for etchings of the 'Blessed Father' that were intended and destined for serial circulation (one always...