This collection of essays by Australian scholars offers a wealth of contemporary perspectives on cultural communication amongst men and women in late medieval and early modern Europe. Essays dealing with Florence and Venice, with Rome, Lucca, Ferrara, and Bologna, as well as with Germany, England, and Lorraine, draw attention to the array of cultural expressions which competed for space and influence across European societies of the period.
These rich studies demonstrate the vitality of cultural production during a period of rapid and often violent transition. Variously focused on formal religious rites, on painting, sculpture, and woodcuts, on sermons, poetry, and letters, the contributors pursue cultural meaning as a matter of social identity and social context - as a performance that can be shown to affirm and also exclude particular topical values. Rituals, Images, and Words highlights the complex and subtle power of rhetorical forms in the history and historiography of late medieval and early modern Europe.