What was Trent like before it became "Trent" as we now tend to think of it? What I mean of course is what were the churches in Trent like prior to the Council of Trent (1545-1563) -- pre-conciliar Trent, if you will. The Council of Trent came out of a need for the Church to respond to the Protestant reformation and following that council, church orderings began to see some shifts, moving toward what we now consider the counter-reformation model. In the case of church orderings specifically, there was a desire to make the sacred liturgy and the reserved Eucharist more visible in order to help re-assert and re-emphasize the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass as well as the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In that regard, earlier medieval methods of reservation (such as aumbries, Eucharistic towers and pyxes) began to make way for larger, more visible and central tabernacles and soon, rood screens would begin to disappear and we would also see the coming of the exposition throne type of altar and altarpieces.
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| Counter-reformation era altarpiece |
These models were so thoroughly embraced throughout Italy in particular, that it can be easy to forget that Italian churches were not always so. Fortunately, we still have a number of extant examples of pre-conciliar Tridentine altarpieces that can help to remind us what medieval and Renaissance Italy once looked like -- and it wasn't so dissimilar from the north. To be clear, this isn't intended to suggest that there is any deficiency with the counter-reformation model; there isn't. From my perspective, that model is just yet another jewel in the crown of Christendom. Still, I feel it is always good to bring to light a better sense of our liturgical history and development. So with that in mind, let's take a quick look at just a few Italian altarpieces from the immediate, pre-conciliar Tridentine period of Trent itself.
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| ca. 1500's |
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| ca. 1480-1482 |
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| ca. 1520 |
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| ca. 1552 |
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| ca. 1487 |
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| ca. 1515-1520 |
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| ca. 1520 |
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| ca. 1468 |
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