Piarist Resonances during the Jubilees in Rome, 1625–1700

This contribution focuses on the procession as a cultural process in the context of seventeenth-century Jubilees in Rome and seeks to investigate the ritual uses of urban space and the subsequent modifications of the city’s relational space. The exemplary case is a ceremony celebrated in the Eternal City every Holy Year by a Piarist confraternity from Frascati, a town in the Roman countryside. I use evidence drawn from contemporary diaries and letters to investigate the soundscape of the ceremony, considering its sonic, visual, and textual elements. In light of the institutional history of the Piarists, I argue that their procession transformed the urban space of Rome, creating new and significant relationships between the city and the people attending or surrounding the ceremony.