Nossa Senhora de Loreto: entre festividades e imagens

Abstract

This work seeks to understand the dynamics of Catholic festivities, based on the analysis of the Festival of Our Lady of Loreto, which takes place every December 10th, in the Parish and Sanctuary of Our Lady of Loreto, in the Parish of Jacarepaguá, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. This Festival is seen by practitioners of the Catholic faith as an opportunity to celebrate and honor the saint within the popular Catholic and, since 2019, also ecclesiastical context. To better understand the spatial issue of the celebration, it was necessary, at first, to discuss the formation of the Parish and the beginning of devotion to this saint in Brazil. To talk about the rites that took place during this festive time, it was also necessary to note the importance of the images within the celebrations, since they are the representation of the saint who is being honored there. Finally, studying the festival of Our Lady of Loreto also means understanding the circulation of these models, which began in Italy and arrive in Brazil from Portuguese perspectives. In pursuit of this objective, it became necessary, mainly, the theoretical foundation of Senra (2017), Mello and Souza (2013) and Rosendahl (2018), as a reference for the discussion of communities and festivities, and Panofsky (2007) and Stuart Hall (2016) contributing about the representations and analysis of images