A Crucifix, Broken and Repaired, and Global Histories of Art and Emotions

Abstract The intersection of the global and material turns has led to an abundance of studies centering the mobility of early modern objects. But things didn’t move of their own volition. Rather, they were propelled or stilled by the emotional responses of human actors. This essay attempts to square the global turn with recent scholarship on the history of emotions. It argues for an increased sensitivity to the emotional regimes that gave lives to objects, while acknowledging the impossibility of creating a single framework for understanding emotional response in as diverse and complex a context as the early modern Hispanic world.