The collection of the Jesuit Collegium Romanum: circulation of object between missionary activities and collecting practices in the early modern age

• Grant number: 20/14862-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: April 01, 2021
• End date: March 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Ana Paula Torres Megiani
• Grantee: Carolina Vaz de Carvalho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 22/14908-3 - The jesuit collection at Collegium Romanum: agents and processes of transmission of non-European objects in an early modern collecting circuit, BE.EP.DD

Abstract

The research project here presented continues a master's research project, promoted to the doctorate course in 6/feb/2020, and dwells on the collection located at the Collegium Romanum under the care of the Jesuit Father Athanasius Kircher, in the period from 1651 to 1680. Our proposal is to investigate the global circulation of elements of material culture in the intersections between early modern collecting practices and the missionary activities of the Society of Jesus, following the objects as they move into and out of the aforementioned collection. Through the movements of these objects, we attempt to trace the networks of social relations and meanings that involved people and things emmeshed in early modern collecting practices, with especial attention to the participation of Jesuit missionaries and of the so-called "Procuradores à Roma" of the Society of Jesus in the transport of collectibles between the different parts of the world. Our main goal it to contribute to a more refined perception of the involvement of the Society of Jesus with early modern collecting practices, as well as of the connections between collecting activities, missionary activities, and other lay and religious activities, and the relationships between individuals engaged in collecting to different degrees. The main primary documents that assist our investigations are two catalogues of the collection at Collegium Romanum, published one in 1678 and the other in 1709, letters received and sent by Athanasius Kircher, currently kept by the Archivio Storico of the Pontifical Gregorian University, and documents referring to the activities od the Jesuit "procuradores" at the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu. (AU)