The Luso-Baroque Republic of Things and the Contingency of Contact

Abstract

 The Republic of Letters is an established concept in the early modern world, but the corresponding circulation of material things, from coins to all they could purchase, has been less recognized, despite its acute agency in the move from an intra-regional Europe to global systems of trade, politics and religion. By tracing the visual patois of a single subject, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, through its appearance in multiple media along the Portuguese eastern trade route (Antwerp, Lisbon, Goa, Nagasaki), this paper draws upon the tangible residue of engagement to consider how the active responses sparked by mimesis can pave the way for a hermeneutic of cultural exchange grounded in the contingency of contact zones.