Romae non sic
In this dissertation the ephemeral church-decorations for the Forty Hours Devotion in Rome and for the Easter Tide in Austria and Southern Germany are described, analysed and compared to each other for the first time. It concerns decorations made to attract the people of Rome to visit the church during Carnival, and the sets that were (and some still are) erected to celebrate ceremonies for the Holy Sepulchre during the Passiontide in churches in Austria and Southern Germany.
The Forty Hours Devotion is a celebration during which the Sacrament is shown during forty hours in church for devotion. Towards the end of the sixteenth century Jesuit priests in Rome took the initiative to organize the Forty Hours Devotion during Carnival in order to distract attention from the profane feasts on the streets of Rome. The organizers took the position that nobody would be insensible to a similar embellishment of the church during the last and most tumultuous days of Carnival. Every year the commissioners instructed designers to picture new miracle stories from the Bible. The reason was to make the church attractive.
Chapter two deals with the scenery for Easter celebrations in Vienna. The Austrians did not have a Carnival tradition as in Rome, but had their main feast during the Holy Week. In chapter three decors in Bavarian and Tyrolean churches are subject. In this last section some remains sceneries are described.Only descriptions, designs and prints of the Roman ephemeral art have been survived. The Austrian decorations were preserved to be used again every year some even still today.