“For the Better Satisfaction of the Christian and Curious Reader”: Visual Tropes and the Rhetoric of Atrocity Representing the 1655 Massacre of the Piedmont Protestants

Abstract

Abstract: In April of 1655, soldiers in the employ of the Duke of Savoy massacred scores of Protestants living in his territories at the basin of the Italian Alps outside of Turin. In response, the Cromwellian Protectorate launched a diplomatic and propagandistic mission to supply aid on their behalf. Following this mission, Samuel Morland, an agent and of the Protectorate and chief envoy responsible for the administration of these efforts, published The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont (1658) to publicise and memorialise these events. Included in this work are several shocking and atrocious images depicting the arbitrary and horrific nature of this massacre against a civilian population. In this presentation I will demonstrate the rhetorical use of this imagery in comparison to other collections of inhumane images from the period including those stemming from the Thirty Years’ War, the 1641 Irish Rebellion, the Amboyna massacre, and depictions of violence in from other non-European locations. Through this analysis I will demonstrate the tropes of atrocity and their memetic and symbolic uses in the development of a shared visual language of atrocity. Additionally, this presentation will address the creation of memory through Morland’s work and the archival anxiety surrounding the collection and publication of documents pertaining to the massacre and the aid organised.