Saints and Signs: A Semiotic Reading of Conversion in Early Modern Catholicism (Religion and Society (de Gruyter))

Catholic saints are also signs. Through the saints, the Catholic Church communicates certain models of spirituality. After the Reformation, saints became the media through which the Catholic Church represented and promoted a renewal of the Catholic faith in Europe and in its colonies. Saints and Signs analyzes hagiographies, paintings, and other texts representing the sanctity of Ignatius of Loyola, Philip Neri, Francis Xavier, and Therese of Avila, in order to answer the following question: How did these words and images influence the Catholic spirituality at the beginning of modernity?