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作者

来源

JOURNAL OF URBAN HISTORY,Vol.43,Issue6,P.1000-1020

语言

英文

关键字

charity; community; identity; orphanage; iconography

作者单位

[van Asperen, Hanneke] Tilburg Univ, Res Iconog Char, Tilburg, Netherlands. van Asperen, H (reprint author), Radboud Univ Nijmegen, Dept Art Hist, POB 9103, NL-6500 HD Nijmegen, Netherlands. E-Mail: h.v.asperen@let.ru.nl

摘要

In the seventeenth century, Dutch charitable institutions were the subject of international praise and the object of civic pride, and their public facades communicated a message of central importance to its citizens. In this essay, I examine the iconography of seventeenth-century gates of charity, focusing on the almoner's orphanage in Gouda and the Holy Ghost orphanage in Leiden. I relate them to other orphanages in the Dutch Republic to show developments in their iconography. The facade decorations demonstrate the responsibilities of the city as benefactor, the expectations of its citizens and the supposed effects of charity upon the community. At the gates, the worlds of the rich and the poor collided. Here, charity could flourish making the community a mirror image of the heavenly realm. The gate portrays the perfect society as one that assists its poor and strengthens its communal ties.