When Migrations Make a Saint: Sorting out the Transcontinental Movemements Around St. Francis Xavier's Tomb During the 17th Century

In my contribution to the summerschool, I will try and trace orders, categories, and developments of migrations in a highly complex case study: the tomb of St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) in the Jesuit church of Bom Jesus in Goa, the capital of the former Portuguese Estado da India. This saint, the so-called Apostle of Asia, and his tomb are particularly well suited to examining the conditions and effects of transcontinental migration for a Catholic cult of saints and its visual culture in the 17th century. The saint traveled enormous distances during his lifetime and, incidentally, also after his death. Subsequently, images, objects, iconographies, styles, concepts, raw materials, techniques and people were set in motion to make the cult of the saint work. Within this multi-layered landscape of movements between Europe and Asia (and America), phases can be distinguished, each with a different quality of migration and leading to very different connectivities, as I will argue. The overarching question in my contribution will be when migrations create connectivities - and when they do not. My lecture is also intended to be an opportunity to reflect on the concept of migration in the discipline of art history in general and to look at where the discussion around this term is currently heading.