DRAMATICS IN (AND OUT OF) THE PULPIT IN POST-TRIDENTINE ITALY.

Visual and physical aspects of the early modern sermon are its most elusive elements, yet they were critically important to early modern preachers, especially in the age of print. This essay surveys various factors that encouraged an increasing emphasis on gesture and performance in the pulpit in the early modern period, particularly religious reform, and asks what influence printed sermons had on oral preaching in Italy from the mid-sixteenth century. It argues that printing gave preachers a forum to regulate the performance of preaching, encouraged them to articulate and promote the continued value of the spoken sermon, and provided a new area where preachers could compete with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]