Between Hagiography and Spectacle: the First Part of «La más amada de Cristo, Santa Gertrudis la Magna» by José de Cañizares (1676-1750)

Abstract

This article examines the first part of La más amada de Cristo, Santa Gertrudis la Magna (1716) by José de Cañizares, one of the most successful hagiographic plays of the late Baroque Spanish theatre. Drawing on the devotional tradition surrounding Saint Gertrude of Helfta and its reception in early modern Spain, the study explores the hagiographic materials available to the playwright and analyzes how specific motifs—visions, miracles, and episodes of spiritual confrontation—are selected and reorganized for incorporation into dramatic action. The discussion is based on a selective comparison with widely circulated hagiographic texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, without positing direct lines of textual dependence, and considers how these materials are adapted to the conventions of the comedia de santos. The article thus highlights how the play constructs a theatrically effective hagiographic figure, in which the visualization of the supernatural and the use of spectacular devices play a central role as mediating elements between devotion and representation.