Traversing the Local and Universal in the Catholic Renewal

ABSTRACT

Increasing numbers of educated Catholic travellers visited holy sites in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Though we are beginning to uncover more about these holy sites in the context of ‘local’ religion, we know very little about how educated travellers encountered them. These sacred places were also places of mobility and exchange. This article explores the responses of an educated traveller from Bohemia on a pilgrimage to Loreto and his encounters with holy sites and religious materials along the way and what this reveals about Catholicism in between the local and universal.