A Case Study of the Blind Healer in Early Modern Europe

Kerri Stone
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Abstract

The Baillieu Library’s Print Collection, which is part of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Melbourne, focuses primarily on the period between 1470 and 1850, having grown out of an initial donation of prints by Dr John Orde Poynton in 1959. Poynton’s collection comprises a diverse representation of European print practitioners, such as D€ urer, Rembrandt, and Hogarth. Unnoticed for many years in a drawer of miscellaneous pictures was a ‘foreign body’, an engraving from 1597–1601 depicting a blind man, which the catalogue record stated was ‘A Grotesque’ (fig. 1). This title was adopted from a handwritten inscription on the backing support. The Connecting Collections project inspired its reassessment in the collection, and as an early modern depiction of the blind healer. The subject of blindness occurs in works of art in the early modern period through biblical themes, such as Christ healing the blind man (John, 9:1–12). It is also a device used for purposes of allegory and metaphor, such as the blind leading the blind and the parable of the blind men and an elephant—an Eastern story of a group of blind men describing an elephant by feel and each coming up with such disparate accounts that they suspect each other of lying. In the early modern period blindness could occur from many circumstances, including war injury, disease, accident, or divine intervention. The blind could expect a life of hardship and poverty: abandoned and left to cling to the fringes of society, and frequently in the role of beggar. However, in art and literature, and in the imagination, the blind were also believed to be endowed with almost supernatural gifts that stemmed from their other heightened senses. As well as acute hearing and choral ability, the blind were understood to be gifted with an inner sight that could perhaps penetrate to truths that the sighted could not perceive. Villamena’s image of a blind man contains elements of social history, and metaphor, but also provides evidence for the practice of medicine and healing. The title, Cieco da Rimedio per i Calli (Blind Man, or Blind Man with Remedy for Corns), relates to a popular genre of prints of street criers that first emerged in Paris in 1500, and then spread to other European cities. This broadsheet style of
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近代早期欧洲盲人治疗师个案研究
Baillieu图书馆的版画收藏是墨尔本大学档案和特别收藏的一部分,主要集中在1470年至1850年之间的时期,由John Orde Poynton博士于1959年最初捐赠的版画发展而来。波因顿的收藏包括欧洲印刷从业者的不同代表,如德乌尔,伦勃朗和贺加斯。多年来,在一个杂画抽屉里,有一个“异物”,这是一幅1597-1601年的雕刻作品,描绘了一个盲人,目录记录称其为“怪诞”(图1)。这个标题来自于背面支架上的手写铭文。连接收藏项目激发了它在收藏中的重新评估,并作为对盲人治疗者的早期现代描述。在现代早期,通过圣经主题的艺术作品中出现了失明的主题,例如基督治愈盲人(约翰福音9:1-12)。它也被用于寓言和隐喻的目的,比如盲人给盲人引路,以及盲人和大象的寓言——一个东方故事,一群盲人凭感觉描述一头大象,每个人都提出了截然不同的说法,以至于他们怀疑对方在说谎。在现代早期,失明可能是由多种情况造成的,包括战争伤害、疾病、事故或神的干预。盲人可能会过着艰苦和贫困的生活:被遗弃,被留在社会的边缘,经常扮演乞丐的角色。然而,在艺术和文学中,以及在想象中,盲人也被认为被赋予了几乎超自然的天赋,这些天赋源于他们其他高度的感官。除了敏锐的听觉和合唱能力外,盲人还被认为具有一种内在的视觉,这种视觉或许能洞悉正常人无法感知的真相。维拉梅纳的盲人形象包含了社会历史和隐喻的元素,但也为医学和治疗的实践提供了证据。这幅画的标题是《盲人》,与1500年在巴黎首次出现的街头叫卖者的流行版画类型有关,然后传播到其他欧洲城市。这种大报样式的
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