Bloody Characters: Frans Francken and Teresa of Ávila in an Era of Witches

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, citizens of Spain’s empire were asked to inspect the signs around them - visual and verbal - with ever greater suspicion. The devil was working his deeds, and one needed to keep a watchful eye. In things that were “out of the ordinary” one could and should find the supernatural - but it was not always clear whether the forces behind such occurrences were demonic or miraculous. This talk brings together two seemingly disparate types of visual materials that emerged from within this framework: Frans Francken’s minutely rendered, textually dense scenes of witches; and relics (specifically written relics) left by the would-be saint Teresa de Jesús. This talk argues that these materials formed flip sides of the same coin within a culture of contesting written forms and modes of inscription. Together they allow us to see how beholders in the early modern Spanish world were learning to scrutinize - to read and to look - more closely than ever before.

Image: Frans II Francken, Witches’ Sabbath, 1607, oil on panel, detail. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.